On October 30, 2015, in our post "The
Storm Before the Calm," we predicted that the number of
patent infringement suits filed in district courts would be way up
in November. We believed that we would see this spike, in part, as
plaintiffs rushed to file their lawsuits ahead of the December 1,
2015, changes to the Federal Rules. These changes eliminated Form
18, the bare bones patent litigation complaint, that patent
plaintiffs have heavily relied on in recent years. From now on,
plaintiffs will need to include enough detail to ensure that their
claims are "plausible."
Now that November is behind us, were we right? Yes—there
was a huge spike in cases filed. Below is a chart showing
district court filings in November for the past five years and, as
you can see, November 2015 is one for the record books. It even
surpassed November 2013, the year that set the record for the total
number of cases filed.
