As we bid good riddance to another year, things tend to slow down in DE, with motions and briefs being stipped out to accommodate the many upcoming holidays. Rather than spend this time with our own families, we here at IP/DE like to spend the month going over various stats for the past year.
Today we have a little rundown of 101 motions in the district.
For instance, you might be interested to know that the Court has decided 17 motions to dismiss based on 101 this year, not counting identical motions filed in related cases. (eds. note -- it occurred to me after compiling this data that it would have made sense to include 12(c) motions in this figure, but ... I didn't).
Of those, a full 14 were granted in their entirety. All told, of the 34 challenged patents, a full 29 are with us only in spirit.
In case you're wondering how that breaks down by Judges, here you go:
- Judge Andrews - 5 motions - 9/9 patents invalid
- Judge Barker - 2 motions - 3/3 patents invalid
- Judge Bryson - 1 motion - 3/3 patents invalid
- Judge Choe-Groves - 2 motions* - 2/2 patents invalid
(Eds. Note -- This does not include the interesting denial of a 101 motion we discussed here, which was based on procedural grounds and later renewed at 12(c))
- Judge Connolly - 1 motion - 2/3 patents invalid
- Judge Murphy - 1 motion - 0/4 patents invalid
- Judge Slomsky - 1 Motion - 1/1 patents invalid
- Judge Williams - 1 motion - 2/2 patents invalid
- Judge Wolson - 2 motions - 7/7 patents invalid
Again, these statistics only cover Rule 12(b) motions to dismiss.
The first main takeaway is that these motions are doing pretty good right now. Long time readers will recall that I first ran these numbers way back in 2021, and found that our judges ranged from a 0%-70% grant rate. In this data, however, the overall grant rate is up to more than 85%.
The second takeaway is that we have a very uneven alphabetical distribution of judges. 2 C's, 2 B's, 2 W's and no R's? It really makes you think. Or not, it's your holiday.
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