Amidst tectonic shifts in the intellectual property landscape caused by the advent of large language models, federal intellectual property litigation has increased somewhat in the five years since the COVID-19 pandemic. While patent litigation remains steady, copyright litigation has increased.
According to Docket Alarm analytics, 268 copyright cases were filed in federal court in February 2020, before the pandemic impacted the court system. In that same month in 2025, 720 cases were filed, an increase of 268%. Copyright filings remain at a high throughout 2025, with the exception of January. One driver of this change is Strike 3 Holdings, revealed in a prior article as the top plaintiff in federal litigation this year.
Trademark litigation has also grown in recent years. This represents a growing trend of lawsuits against anonymous sellers of allegedly counterfeit goods; the defendants are not named but instead referred to solely a as a reference to a schedule on the docket.
This trend emerged as a tactic in 2022, and has exploded since. The strategy is used to combat alleged counterfeiters through entry of a court order that would require online marketplaces to not sell products sourced from the defendant parties.
Patent litigation has remained relatively steady in the last five years. The top patent litigation plaintiff is Cedar Lane Technologies, identified as a “non-practicing entity” by Stanford University. A non-practicing entity is a company that acquires patents but does not practice or use the patented invention itself. Other major patent litigants include Samsung, Google, and Patent Armory, another non-practicing entity.
Geography has always played a major role in IP litigaiton; the Eastern and Western districts of Texas remain popular with patent plaintiffs for their reputation as fast courts. For trademark litigation, cases are concentrated in the Northern District of Illinois, home to Chicago.
