Law360, New York ( August 20, 2014, 10:12 AM EDT) -- The steady increase in patent litigation has been a continuing trend over the last 20 years, and the past year was no exception. According to the recent PricewaterhouseCooper 2014 patent litigation study, there were close to 6,500 patent cases filed in 2013, with 6,118 of these filings occurring in district courts. The remaining 2013 filings were filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board). The total number of 2013 filings represented a 25 percent increase over the number of cases filed in 2012. Since 2009 the number of cases filed has had a compound annual growth of 24 percent. This trend appears to be continuing based on 2014 filings to date....