Patent trolling is an activity in which companies (also called non-practicing entities, or NPEs, because patent trolling is their only activity) buy up patents merely for the purposes of extracting licensing fees from companies using the patents’ technologies. They then file lawsuits or, even worse, merely threaten to do so unless they are paid off. The lawsuits haven’t been confined to actions against big corporations in technology; they’ve attacked mom-and-pop businesses, including restaurants, real estate agents, and supermarkets. In effect, it’s legal extortion. Last week the House passed the Innovation Act of 2013 (H.R. 3309) by an overwhelming margin of 325 to 91. If the bill is finally enacted, it would make changes in current law, such as: Requiring specificity by litigants on how they were injured by alleged infringement Requiring litigants to name who has a financial interest in the patent that’s allegedly being infringed Delaying discovery (which is very costly to businesses being sued) until after a court has reviewed the claims so that frivolous ones can be dismissed A measure that would have required losing litigants to pay court costs for winning defendants did not make it into the final version of the bill.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Apr 2014 13:41:47 +0000
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