Bigger Families Get Asserted More

Analysis of 6,500+ patent litigations over the past five years shows that asserted patents consistently come from larger patent families—and continuations play a disproportionate role in assertion.

Family Size: Asserted vs Control

Across industries (~550 litigations per industry), the median patent family size for asserted patents is approximately 36% larger than for controls. Very large families are dramatically overrepresented—9% of asserted patents belong to families of 20+ members, compared to just 1% of controls.

Pharma and Biotech: The Outliers

Pharma and biotech show the most extreme family size differences. Asserted pharma patents come from families with a median of 50 members vs just 17 for controls—nearly 200% larger. Biotech is similar, with a median of 48 (asserted) vs 15 (control), over 200% larger. These industries use continuation strategies aggressively to build claim variations around high-value inventions.

Small-Industry Exceptions Healthcare services (~150 litigations) and education (~32 litigations) show nearly identical family sizes between asserted and control groups.

Continuations Drive Assertion

Continuation patents are far more common among asserted patents. At the patent level, about 50% of asserted patents are continuations vs only 20% of controls. At the family level, 84% of asserted families contain at least one continuation vs 71% of controls.

OpCos Assert More Continuations Than NPEs Operating companies show a slight preference for asserting continuations—roughly 3,450 continuation assertions vs 3,200 non-continuation assertions. NPEs show the opposite pattern, with about 1,500 continuation assertions vs 1,900 non-continuation assertions.

Takeaways

Litigation risk and licensing leverage skew toward patents backed by larger, continuation-heavy families. A thoughtful continuation strategy should be part of any enforcement playbook, particularly in pharma and biotech where the correlation is strongest.