Mediation has been center stage in dispute resolution processes; it affords parties and their counsel many well known advantages: privacy, informality, an opportunity for a frank evaluation of the merits, and control including the ability to manage the costs and risks of litigation as well as the outcome. All these factors become even more pronounced when the dispute in question involves patents.
First and foremost, are the costs associated with patent litigation. Patent cases take an average of 2.5 years to resolve, according to PWC’s 2014 Patent Litigation Study, taking valuable time away from ‘business as usual’. And it is expensive: according to the AIPLA Report of the Economic Survey 2013, when $1-10 million is at stake, the median litigation costs through discovery amount to $1 million and total costs to $2 million. If $10-25 million is at stake, these figures jump to $2 million and $3.325 million respectively, and for matters with over $25 million at stake, the figures are $3 million and $5.5 million. Moreover, parties often head to larger law firms when their IP is at risk, ratcheting up each of these figures. For example, if over $25 million is at stake and the firm hired has over 60 employees, the litigation costs increase to $4.7 million through discovery and $7 million in total. [Read more…]