In 2024, the largest patent damages verdicts all received nine figures, which is consistent with recent years. The highest award of $847 million was set aside by a judge. No patent verdicts topped $1 billion, as had happened in several headline-grabbing cases earlier in the decade. Finnegan partner J.P. Long tracks patent damages awards and told Law360 that the 2024 trend indicates the median range for top patent verdicts has been flattening out.
"That does seem to be sort of the natural resting place at least for now: Those really top judgments tend to be in the $500 million range or so, maybe a couple above and a couple below," he said.
J.P. added that "gauging trends based on those top values alone can be misleading at times."
While the largest verdicts often fall in a similar range, J.P. said the damages award data he collects shows there were more verdicts exceeding $100 million, $50 million, and even $10 million in 2024 than in recent years. That could be tied to increased litigation funding, which may make patent owners more willing to take cases to trial, he said.
