The following statement regarding the reintroduction of the Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership Act (the “PREVAIL Act”) and the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) can be attributed to Chris Mohr, President, Software & Information Industry Association.

SIIA today reaffirms its opposition to PREVAIL and PERA. Both pieces of legislation are a gift to patent trolls and the sovereign wealth funds that enable them. PREVAIL would hamstring the bipartisan America Invents Act, rendering its less expensive alternative to litigation functionally useless, and driving up the costs of poor quality patents on innovation. PREVAIL undoes that system, weakening protections against abusive patent litigation, creating unjustified obstacles to PTAB review and degrading its utility. The PREVAIL Act would also substantially harm U.S. businesses and consumers by strengthening the ability of foreign competitors and patent assertion entities to profit from the assertion of invalid patents at their expense.

PERA overrules 200 years of case law that has moored patent rights to technological improvement, and did not even receive a Committee vote last year. If passed, it will re-open the floodgates of litigation to our members and main street businesses for simply performing tasks “on a computer.”

Enactment of either of these bills will harm innovation across the entire U.S. economy.