---
title: "Time to Trial"
description: "Compare how long selected courts or judges take to reach trial."
---

Time to Trial compares the time it takes selected courts or judges to reach trial in patent cases. Use it to understand typical trial timing, compare venues or judges, and see how a selected result compares with the broader national distribution.

## What it tells you

Time to Trial summarizes elapsed time to trial for a selected court or judge.

The page shows:

- average months to trial
- median months to trial
- maximum and minimum months
- a distribution of trial timing for the selected court or judge
- a comparison with all courts or judges

This makes it easier to see both the typical timing and the spread of results.

## Questions it can answer

- How long does a selected court typically take to reach trial?
- How does a judge's time to trial compare with the broader population?
- Is trial timing relatively consistent or widely spread?
- How do bench and jury trials compare?
- How does excluding transferred, stayed, consolidated, or unusually long or short cases affect the result?

## How to interpret the analysis

Time to Trial measures **elapsed time from case filing to the earliest recorded indication that a trial occurred** for qualifying patent cases.

For transferred or consolidated matters, the analysis is intended to use the earliest filing in the related group as the starting point. Trial timing is based on the earliest recorded trial event, such as a verdict for a jury trial or findings of fact and conclusions of law for a bench trial.

The summary cards help distinguish the typical result from the extremes. The median is often especially useful when a small number of unusually long or short cases would otherwise distort the average.

The comparison chart places the selected court or judge alongside the broader court or judge population so you can see whether the selected result tends to be faster, slower, or similar.

## Filters and defaults

Use the controls on the left to focus the analysis.

You can select:

- **Courts** or **Judges**
- a trial date range
- dates to exclude
- whether to exclude cases involving transfers
- whether to exclude cases involving stays
- whether to exclude outliers
- whether to exclude consolidated cases
- case size
- bench trials, jury trials, or both

By default, extreme outliers are excluded, while transferred, stayed, and consolidated cases remain included.

Case size is based on the number of accusations in the matter, with Small, Medium, and Large available as filters.

## Reading the results

The top cards show the average, median, maximum, and minimum number of months for the selected court or judge, together with broader comparison values.

The histogram shows how many qualifying trials fall within different timing ranges. Use it to see whether trials cluster around a typical period or are spread across a wider range.

The comparison box plot shows the distribution for the selected court or judge next to the broader population. This is useful when two courts have similar averages but very different levels of consistency.

## Important considerations

Time to Trial includes only cases with a recorded trial event, so it does not represent all filed cases.

Changing exclusions, trial type, or case size can materially change the population being analyzed. Compare results using the same settings when evaluating different courts or judges.

The analysis is best used to understand historical timing patterns. It does not predict when a pending case will reach trial.

:::note
Analytics tools vary by library. See [Analytics Availability](/analytics/availability/) for current availability.
:::