According to the 2013 Economic Survey by the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the average cost of patent litigation in the United States for a case claiming between $1 million and $10 million in damages is $2.1 million.
The average cost for patent cases claiming less than $1 million in damages is $968,000. In other words, when someone infringes your patent in the United States, on average, you’ll spend about as much on the case as you get out of it. Business disputes – a breach of a contract, theft of confidential information, or even an employment dispute – can become just as expensive.
