Looking across 6,500+ US patent litigations from the last five years, one pattern stands out immediately:

Asserted patents are far more likely to be acquired than organically filed.

Over half of asserted patents come from the secondary market, compared with well under half in a control set of non-asserted patents.

That raises an uncomfortable question:
👉 If the patents that matter most are disproportionately acquired, what does that say about relying on organic filing alone?

Is Patent Acquisition Really Just an NPE Tactic?

It’s easy to dismiss acquisition-driven assertion as an NPE phenomenon — but the data doesn’t support that.

Operating companies also assert acquired patents at meaningful rates, even with deep internal R&D pipelines. This suggests acquisition isn’t a corner case. It’s a structural feature of how enforcement-relevant portfolios are built.

👉 If acquisition keeps showing up in asserted portfolios, can it really be treated as optional?

👉 Are you shaping coverage intentionally — or competing later against someone who is?

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