294 Patent Lawsuits Were Filed In August 2011; Mobile Handset Complaints Up 25 Percent Yearly

There's no question that the cost of patents is rising. Google is paying $12.5 billion for Motorola mainly for its huge mobile patent portfolio. In July, an anti-Google consortium raised $4.5 billion for Nortel's patents (and they overpayed). Interdigital, Kodak, and others are looking to sell their patent portfolios. As my colleague Erick Schonfeld wrote recently, we are in the midst of a patent bubble. One startup, Lex Machina, is aiming to help companies gain insight into data and analytics on patent litigation. And unsurprisingly, the company's online patent litigation database is being used by most of the top tech companies in Silicon Valley. The company is just did a study on mobile handset litigation. According to Lex Machina's data, mobile handset lawsuits are up roughly 25 percent a year since 2006. �In fact, in August of 2011 alone, there were 294 patent lawsuits, 8 percent of which were mobile-related. Currently, Apple is involved in 97 open patent cases (here's�an example of one). Motorola Mobility is�involved with 38 open patent cases.

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