Non practicing entities brought 66 of the 75 classified suits against telecommunications defendants, or 88.0%. Operating companies brought 9. Across the full twelve months a single operating company filing was classified as a dispute between direct competitors.
A defensive portfolio has almost nothing to point at in this industry. Three of the 69 companies sued appear anywhere in this data as an asserting party. The work that a portfolio does elsewhere falls to invalidity and non infringement here, against patents granted a median 10.9 years before suit.
Filing volume is rising and the most recent quarter is incomplete. The 41 days from 1 July to 10 August 2026 already carry 24 cases, more than any complete quarter in the preceding two years.
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.
Is a countersuit worth scoping at all?
In 88.0% of classified cases the asserter sells nothing. Scoping a counterclaim costs time that returns nothing against a party with no products and no revenue to support a damages award. The first hour is better spent on the asserted patent's file history than on the defendant's own portfolio.
Was the patent assigned after issue?
Acquired patents make up 73.9% of non practicing assertions here and 70.3% of all assertions in the industry. Recorded assignments are worth pulling on the face of the patent, remembering that recordation is voluntary and transfers between shell entities are not always on file.
How far into the term is it?
Non practicing assertions arrive a median 10.9 years after grant and 18.2 years after the earliest priority date. Remaining term is often short, which limits the ongoing royalty a license can carry. The backward looking damages claim reaches six years by statute whatever the grant date.
Who is doing the asserting
of classified cases came from entities that hold patents without building products, second only to financial services among industries with more than 50 cases.
Financial services runs higher at 90.5% on 74 cases. Software and internet sits at 74.6% on 256 classified cases. At the other end, pharmaceuticals recorded no non practicing filings at all and medical devices recorded them in 26.8% of cases.
The nine operating company suits came from eight companies. One operating company filed twice against a telecommunications defendant in this window.
The 88.0% headline excludes the two unclassified cases, and counting all 77 filings brings the non practicing share to 85.7%.
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.
telecommunications companies sued here appear anywhere in this data as an asserting party.
The 40 non practicing entities that filed against telecommunications defendants over these twelve months all hold patents they do not practice. Invalidity and non infringement defenses work normally against them. An entity that sells nothing has no infringing sales to accuse and no revenue to support a damages award, so a countersuit on the defendant's own patents has no target.
A portfolio held for deterrence does little work here. Semiconductors runs at 17.7% on the same measure, four times the rate here.
Deterrence bears on the 12.0% of classified matters that operating companies bring, and the remaining 88.0% arrive from parties a portfolio cannot reach.
Who is getting sued
Two companies with market capitalization above $200 billion absorbed 2 of the 77 cases. 38 companies with no public listing absorbed 41 between them, and small listed companies under $2 billion absorbed a further 17.
Cases by defendant size
77 cases across 69 distinct telecommunications defendants.
Telecommunications assertions land further down the size curve than the sector's public profile suggests. Private companies and listed companies under $2 billion together absorbed 58 of the 77 cases, or 75%. The two largest defendants faced one suit each. A campaign built on communications patents reaches equipment makers, resellers and service providers well below carrier scale.
What they assert on
Most asserted patents carry a primary CPC subclass. Two classes account for 58% of everything brought against telecommunications defendants, and both are dominated by non practicing assertions.
Asserted patents by technology area
171 patents with a primary CPC classification, split by asserting party type.
H04L37.4% of asserted patentsH04W20.5%H04N9.4%F41A4.7% · see method noteH04M4.7%H04B4.1%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. The operating company column here rests on a small sample and is reported with that limit attached.
| Attribute | Asserted by NPEs | Asserted by op. co. | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share acquired rather than original | 73.9% | 58.6% | −15.3 pts |
| Median years from grant to suit | 10.9 | 7.6 | 1.4× |
| Median years from priority to suit | 18.2 | 12.4 | 1.5× |
| Average simple family size | 11.4 | 11.5 | level |
| Share that are continuations | 33.1% | 34.5% | level |
Two years of filings
Cases filed per quarter against telecommunications defendants
By asserting party type. 2026 Q3 is partial and the data ends 10 August 2026.
Non practicing filings rose from 5 in 2024 Q3 to 22 in the 41 days of 2026 Q3 covered by this data. Operating company filings stayed at or below six in every quarter, and reached zero twice. The partial quarter carries 24 cases in total, which exceeds all eight complete quarters before it. A forecast built on total filings in this industry tracks non practicing behavior almost exactly.
The one competitor suit
Across the full twelve months, one operating company filing against a telecommunications defendant was classified as a dispute between direct competitors. It is reproduced here in full because the category contains nothing else on that side.
- Competitive
Locus Location Systems, LLC v. PCTEL, Inc.
1 patent · location and network testing · the only competitor filing in the window
The other eight operating company suits were classified as something other than direct competition, including assertions across industry lines and against parties in a supply relationship. Seven companies filed those eight cases, and one of them filed twice.
Competitive relationship labels come from model classification in the source data rather than from court findings. A single case is a count, not a rate, and a second competitor filing next quarter would double this category.
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 8
- Avg total claims
- 3.5 independent claims average
Telecommunications assertions are older and far more heavily acquired than the cross industry norm, at 70.3% acquired against 49.9% and nearly four years longer from grant to suit. Continuation share runs twelve points below average and family size sits a third below it. These are legacy communications portfolios asserted late in their term, and the profile matches what the entity mix predicts.
Most active asserters in window
Entities that do not practice
- ReadyComm LLC
- CommPlex Systems LLC
- Active Wireless Technologies LLC
- BillSure LLC
- Data Fence LLC
Operating companies
- Acer, Inc.
- Adeia Media Holdings Inc.
- Adeia Technologies Inc.
- Apple Inc.
- Belkin International, Inc.
BillSure LLC combines cases filed under two spellings of the name. One operating company filed twice and the rest filed once each. On the other side, 40 distinct entities brought 66 cases, with the largest at five. Neither list supports an asserter watchlist that would cover much of the exposure, and the technology classes do more predictive work than the names do.