“U.S. Senate Considers Bills Benefiting Patent Trolls at Public’s Expense”
U.S. Senate Proposes Bills that Could Empower Patent Trolls and Undermine Public Interests
The U.S. Senate is currently considering two bills that could potentially benefit patent trolls, patent insiders, and a handful of large corporations that rely on weak patents, at the expense of the general public. The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) and the PREVAIL Act (S. 2220) are stirring controversy due to their potential implications on the patent system.
Patent Trolls: A Growing Concern
Patent trolls are companies that do not produce or sell products or services. Instead, they amass patents and use them to threaten or sue other companies and individuals. They are not a minor issue; patent trolls filed the majority of patent lawsuits last year and for all the years in which we have reliable data. In the tech sector, they file more than 80% of the lawsuits. These non-productive companies continue to exploit the patent system, and they stand to gain significantly if the two bills the U.S. Senate is considering are passed.
The PERA: A Threat to Software and Genetic Patents
The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act, or PERA, could overturn crucial legal precedents that help weed out the worst patents from the system. It could nullify a landmark Supreme Court ruling, Alice v. CLS Bank, which clarified that patents cannot simply claim basic business or cultural processes by adding generic computer language.
PERA could also overturn a Supreme Court rule that prevents patents from being granted on naturally occurring human genes. This could lead to monopolization of diagnostic tests and potentially hinder future health innovations by blocking competition from those who may offer more affordable tests and treatments.
The PREVAIL Act: Limiting Public’s Right to Challenge Patents
The PREVAIL Act could prevent most people from petitioning the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to revoke patents that should not have been granted. The USPTO issues hundreds of thousands of patents every year, with less than 20 hours, on average, being devoted to examining each patent. Mistakes are inevitable.
The PREVAIL Act could limit access to the inter partes review (IPR) process, which allows the public to ask the USPTO to double-check certain patents, to only those who have been directly threatened or sued over a patent. This could prevent non-profits and membership-based patent defense companies from accessing the IPR process to protect the public.
Public Interest vs. Patent Trolls
The Senators pushing these bills seem to be ignoring the patent troll problem. The facts remain clear: the majority of patent lawsuits are brought by patent trolls. In the tech sector, it’s more than 80%. These numbers may be low considering threat letters from patent trolls, which don’t become visible in the public record.
These patent lawsuits don’t have much to do with what most people think of when they think about “inventors” or inventions. They’re brought by companies that have no business beyond making patent threats.
There’s big money behind bringing back the patent troll business, as well as a few huge tech and pharma companies that prefer to use unjustified monopolies rather than competing fairly. We can’t let that happen. It’s time to take action and tell Congress: Don’t Work For Patent Trolls.