A Strategic Look At Champerty And Third-Party Litigation Financing

Third-party litigation financing is a topic of increasing interest. The practice has become more common, and federal courts as well as the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board are responding to ensure that the real parties in interest are participating in intellectual property disputes. In addition, a proposal is pending before the Advisory Committee on Rules of Civil Procedure that would revise the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to require disclosure of third-party funding arrangements affecting all federal patent, copyright and trademark actions. Furthermore, a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in Worlds v. Bungie, has tasked the PTAB with conducting an analysis of the real-party-in interest issue where evidence is presented by a patent owner to sufficiently put the issue into dispute.