An article in the Star-Telegram.com, May 14, 2006 (Barry Schlacter) quoted Brian Reuter of Guideline, Inc., a firm that supplies technology expert witnesses. All praise mystical metrics!
“In patent litigation, the average cost per side is $2 million. There [were] 2,814 patent litigation filings in 2003, which means about $11 billion. If just 1 percent was spent on expert witnesses, that’s more than $1 billion [sic] for patent cases alone.”
A) The average cost per case may have holes (See my posts of May 1, 2005 and links – especially since so many cases resolve before trial; May 4, 2005 estimating total patent litigation costs – in 1991 dollars – of about $1 billion, but March 25, 2005 giving a figure close to $2 million; Nov. 11, 2005 on Microsoft averaging about $3 million per patent lawsuit; and Nov. 30, 2005 on boutiques handling patent cases and a $2 million figure.).
B) One study in six major industries found about 1,100 federal patent cases in the decade 1992 to 2002 (See my post of April 9, 2006 with LexisNexis research.). Perhaps state courts have jurisdiction over federal patent cases?
C) The multiplication of a high case cost by a high number of cases leads to exaggerated total costs (See my post of Feb. 1, 2006 (#2) that estimates $4 billion total spent on US patent litigation in 2000.)
D) Who knows whether one percent is plausible as the amount paid expert witnesses?
E) One percent of $11 billion, even on the breathtaking assumption that $11 billion is plausible, is $100 million, not $1 billion.
For more on patent litigation, see my posts of Aug. 24, 2005 on patentees winning more lawsuits and Nov. 3, 2005 (#3) about jury trials in patent litigation.