Patent trolls often target smaller companies, study finds

Large companies such as Samsung, Google, Apple and Amazon are the most frequent targets of patent litigation.

But a new report highlights how smaller companies have also become fairly common targets of patent lawsuits filed by non-practicing entities (NPEs), which are also sometimes called patent trolls because they acquire patents to assert them against other companies.

More than 52% of companies targeted in patent lawsuits by NPEs between 2017 and 2022 had annual revenues of less than $25 million, according to a study from intellectual property analysis company HighTech-Solutions.