Non practicing entities brought 67 of the 106 classified suits, or 63.2%. Operating companies brought 39. The distribution resembles software and internet, and the defensive position does not.
Exactly one of the 84 retail defendants appears anywhere in this data as an asserting party. Retailers are sued over products and systems they bought rather than designed, which puts indemnity and vendor terms where a portfolio would otherwise sit.
The technology reflects that. G06F and H04W assertions here are 100% non practicing across 44 patents, and F41A, a firearms class, carries a further 21 patents reaching retailers through the goods on their shelves.
What this cannot tell you. The dataset records filings, parties and asserted patents, not results, so settlement rates, IPR institution rates and dismissal figures all fall outside it. Nothing here describes what a matter costs to defend or how it ends.
Using this on a live matter
Three questions answerable from public records in the first hour after a complaint or demand letter arrives, and what each answer usually means in this industry.
Who made the accused thing?
Retail defendants are usually accused over goods, point of sale systems or web infrastructure supplied by someone else. One of the 84 companies sued here asserts patents of its own, so the contractual position with the supplier does the work a portfolio does in other industries. Locating the indemnity clause is a first hour task.
Is this a single defendant filing?
Non practicing filings here run in campaigns against many sellers. The largest asserter brought 9 cases and five more brought at least four each. A matter that looks isolated is often one entry in a set, and the sibling cases carry claim constructions and invalidity contentions already on file.
Was the patent assigned after issue?
Acquired patents account for 70.8% of non practicing assertions against 47.8% for operating companies. Across the whole industry the figure is 61.1%, eleven points above the cross industry norm. Assignment history separates the two populations here, though less sharply than it does in software.
Who is doing the asserting
of classified cases came from entities that hold patents without building products.
That places retail close to semiconductors at 63.4% and software and internet at 74.6%. Financial services and telecommunications sit far higher at 90.5% and 88.0%. Consumer goods, the sector retail sells for, runs the other way at 42.9%.
Thirty four distinct non practicing entities filed the 67 cases on that side. The largest brought nine.
The 63.2% headline excludes the two unclassified cases, and counting all 108 filings brings the non practicing share to 62.0%.
What a defensive portfolio reaches
A portfolio held for deterrence works by giving the other side something to lose if it is sued back. The mechanism needs an opponent whose own products can infringe.
retail companies sued here appears anywhere in this data as an asserting party.
Semiconductors runs at 22 of 124 on the same measure and consumer goods at 16 of 185. A retailer rarely owns the patents covering what it sells, so the counterassertion route that other industries use is closed before the entity type of the asserter is even considered.
The practical substitute is contractual. Where an accused product, payment terminal or storefront platform came from a supplier, indemnity and defense obligations under that agreement reach further than any patent the retailer could hold.
Both halves of this docket point the same way. The 63.2% from non practicing entities cannot be countersued, and the 36.8% from operating companies is aimed at goods the defendant did not design.
Who is getting sued
Seven companies with market capitalization above $200 billion absorbed 16 of the 108 cases. 54 companies with no public listing absorbed 66 between them, or 61% of the industry total.
Cases by defendant size
108 cases across 84 distinct retail and e-commerce defendants.
The seven largest defendants faced 2.3 suits each on average against 1.2 across the rest of the industry, and they still account for under a sixth of the docket. Volume concentrates among private sellers and marketplace merchants. Twelve filings in this window name their defendants on an attached schedule rather than individually, a practice that reaches many online sellers through a single case. The defendant count here treats a schedule as one party rather than as the sellers it names.
What they assert on
Most asserted patents carry a primary CPC subclass. The six largest account for 63% of everything brought against retail defendants, and three of them carry no operating company assertions at all.
Asserted patents by technology area
169 patents with a primary CPC classification, split by asserting party type.
G06F18.9% of asserted patentsF41A12.4% · goods on the shelfG06Q10.1%H04N7.7%H04W7.1%H04M7.1%Two kinds of asserted patent
Patents asserted by non practicing entities differ from those asserted by operating companies on attributes visible in the public record. Family size separates them here more sharply than acquisition does.
| Attribute | Asserted by NPEs | Asserted by op. co. | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share acquired rather than original | 70.8% | 47.8% | −23.0 pts |
| Median years from grant to suit | 9.0 | 5.2 | 1.7× |
| Median years from priority to suit | 16.4 | 8.9 | 1.8× |
| Average simple family size | 5.7 | 11.3 | 2.0× |
| Share that are continuations | 34.2% | 31.9% | level |
Two years of filings
Cases filed per quarter against retail and e-commerce defendants
By asserting party type. 2026 Q3 is partial and the data ends 10 August 2026.
Operating company filings held between 5 and 14 a quarter with no direction across the eight complete quarters. Non practicing filings tripled, from 7 in 2024 Q3 to 21 in 2026 Q2. The industry entered the period at 33% non practicing and left it at 60%. Total volume rose from 21 to 35 over the same span.
Recent assertions by operating companies
Thirty nine operating company suits landed in the window and five were classified as disputes between direct competitors. The most recent are below.
- Competitive
Jackson Hole Jewelry Company LLC v. Baylink Internet LLC
1 patent · online jewelry retail · neither party is public
- Competitive
Hexin Holding Limited v. the partnerships and associations on Schedule A
2 patents · defendants named on an attached schedule rather than individually
- Competitive
AOB Products Company v. Eposeidon Outdoor Adventure, Inc.
2 patents · outdoor equipment · two sellers in one category
- Competitive
Andra Group, LP v. Earthbound Holding, LLC
2 patents · apparel retail · neither party is public
The schedule based filing is a practice specific to online marketplaces, reaching many sellers through one case. Counts in this brief treat a schedule as a single defendant rather than as the sellers it names. Competitive relationship labels come from model classification in the source data rather than from court findings.
Portfolio attributes across all assertions
- Acquired patents
- All industries: 49.9%
- Median grant → suit
- All industries: 6.3 yrs
- Median priority → suit
- All industries: 13.1 yrs
- Continuations
- All industries: 44.5%
- Avg simple family
- All industries 17.3 · median here 4
- Avg total claims
- 3.1 independent claims average
Retail assertions sit at the cross industry norm on age and well below it on everything structural. Average family size is 7.6 against 17.3 and the continuation rate is twelve points low. Patents asserted against retailers are smaller filings than the sector average, which is consistent with a docket built from bought individual patents rather than from portfolios a competitor developed alongside a product.
Most active asserters in window
Entities that do not practice
- Near Field Electronics LLC
- ABC IP, LLC
- Nearby Systems LLC
- Patent Armory Inc.
- VDPP, LLC
- Wolverine Barcode IP, LLC
Operating companies
- BOOMCLOUD 360, INC.
- Hexin Holding Limited
- Intake Breathing Technology, LLC
- Ningbo Jiuli CNC Machinery Co., Ltd.
- AJ's Nifty Products LLC
The second non practicing entry combines five cases filed under three spellings of ABC IP, LLC. The first operating company entry combines two cases filed as BOOMCLOUD 360, INC. with one filed as Boomcloud 360 Inc. The non practicing side shows one asserter at nine and a band at four and five beneath it, which is the shape of several parallel campaigns rather than one dominant filer. Several operating companies on the right are overseas manufacturers asserting against United States sellers.