The opposition to the abuses by patent trolls is growing. The House Judiciary Committee holds a hearing today to further examine their litigation abuses. Two of SIIA’s members, SAS and Adobe, join the panel in calling for changes to current law to remedy these abuses. For instance, SAS’s General Counsel, John Boswell , says it is time to reverse the cost burden of excessive discovery requests in patent litigation. SIIA released a press statement today endorsing this approach and also supporting the SHIELD Act, which would move litigation costs to the patent troll when it loses its patent infringement case.
Adding to the chorus for change is an excellent summary of the factual issues by law professor Colleen Chien, posted today on Patentlyo, the nation’s leading legal blog. Some of her surprising findings are that non-tech companies are now more often the target of suits by patent trolls (she calls them patent assertion entities or PAEs), and that most of the targets of PAEs (55%) are small companies making $10 million or less. The research shows among other things:
- PAEs brought 62% of 2012 patent litigations
- In 2012, PAEs sued more non-tech companies than tech companies
- 94% of PAE suits are brought by corporations
- 59% of all patent defendants are being sued by PAEs
- 55% of unique PAE defendants make $10M or less
- PAEs are less successful than practicing entities in litigation
She concludes her profile of patent trolls with concern about the impact that the trolls are having on “businesses, innovation and the economy.” She also notes the level of anger among the victims, especially the small business victims, of patent trolls and predicts an increase in support for patent litigation reform: “As the numbers of impacted companies and industries continues to grow, don’t be surprised if the ranks of those who support curbing most egregious litigation abuses – the practices of going after end-users, rather than manufacturers and extracting from small companies nuisance-based rather than value-based settlements – continues to swell as well.”
SIIA agrees. It is time to put an end to the litigation abuses by patent trolls.
Mark MacCarthy, Vice President, Public Policy at SIIA, directs SIIA’s public policy initiatives in the areas of intellectual property enforcement, information privacy, cybersecurity, cloud computing and the promotion of educational technology. Follow the SIIA Public Policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy