Seattle Tech Week returns July 27-31, bringing hundreds of founder-led and tech-centric events to the city. Litigation risk is one topic we hear about from growing companies, often only after a dispute has already landed on their plate. The data below shows why litigation preparedness belongs next to product and fundraising strategy, not behind it.
1. Patent litigation is on the rise again after a post-pandemic lull.
Patexia's newly released Patent Litigation Intelligence Report 2026 tracked more than 18,000 patent cases filed between 2020 and 2025, involving nearly 50,000 companies as plaintiffs, defendants, or both. The report found that filing activity jumped sharply in 2025 after several years of post-pandemic decline. One takeaway is that the “quiet period” was not the new normal, and the curve is already bending back up.
2. Tech is the single biggest target.
High-tech cases accounted for more than 50% of district court patent filings and nearly 70% of PTAB petitions in the first half of 2026, according to Unified Patents’ Patent Dispute Report: First Half 2026. Within tech patent cases specifically, non-practicing entities were behind 88% of district court case filings and were the target of more than 70% of PTAB challenges. Unsurprisingly, large technology companies remain the most frequently sued defendants overall. Being the most innovative company in a category often goes hand in hand with being a target.
3. Trade secret filings hit an all-time high.
Federal courts saw more than 1,500 new trade secret cases filed in 2025 (the highest annual total on record), according to Lex Machina’s newly released 2026 Trade Secret Litigation Report. These filings cluster in California and other tech hubs, with the Central District of California being the most active venue in the country. Many of these disputes trace back to employee movement (a departing hire carrying know-how to a competitor or a new venture) which puts onboarding and offboarding practices among the highest-leverage places to reduce exposure. While these trade secret cases do not always move quickly (averaging just over three years to trial) juries awarded more than $700 million in actual damages and $500 million in punitive damages from 2023 to 2025, providing benchmarks for assessing risk and trial outcomes.
4. AI has generated a new litigation category.
More than 100 copyright infringement lawsuits have now been filed against AI companies by content owners, according to Axis Intelligence, and independent trackers report even more active AI-related cases spanning copyright, trade secret, privacy, and defamation claims. Companies building with AI are operating at the cutting edge of these legal frameworks, whether the subject is training data, model outputs, or third-party content.
5. Preparation is measurably cheaper than litigation.
The same growth that makes a company worth building is what makes it worth suing. Litigation risk cannot be eliminated. But each of these reports confirms the same basic lesson: reviewing IP strategy, tightening confidentiality practices, documenting AI usage policies, and preserving records before a dispute starts is faster and cheaper than doing it once a complaint has already been filed. In practice, that means a few concrete moves can go a long way: put confidentiality and IP-assignment terms in your agreements, keep a log of how AI tools touch your product and data, and calendar an IP review before your next raise.
Keep the conversation going at Seattle Tech Week 2026 (July 27-31). Registration and the full event calendar are live at SeattleTechWeek.com.