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However, Cox noted that in some industries, like pharmaceuticals, where patents mean the life and death of the product, securities fraud cases have been filed with more regularity.
And Jonathan Shapiro, a securities litigator with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in Palo Alto, said there may be more on the horizon. With a recent dip in accounting problems to sue over, plaintiff lawyers may be looking more closely at how companies are disclosing the risks related to their patents, Shapiro said.
“In the absence of accounting problems and earning problems, the plaintiffs have to look elsewhere,” he said. “One of them is potential or actual risks to a patent portfolio.”
