Posts Tagged: "S. 1720"

Patent Reform: Will Fee-Shifting Solve the Patent Troll Problem?

Will these regulations make it less likely that a patent troll might take on a frivolous lawsuit? Perhaps, but it may also result in a higher win percentage for plaintiffs who only take sure bets to court, and those plaintiffs will be in line to obtain payment of their attorneys fees as well. Also, there’s nothing to prevent the most nefarious actors, the true trolls who only intend to reap money from patents regardless of infringement, from deciding to go bankrupt and not pay fees if they lose. Still others who are extremely well funded are likely be to able to purchase patents for pennies on the dollar, building enormous portfolios that will make the Intellectual Ventures portfolio look small in comparison. Will big-tech fight against such well funded super patent trolls? If the don’t then what good does fee-shifting do? You have to win to obtain the fees, so there is a real possibility that this legislation will not only fail to cure the problem but instead make it worse while destroying the smaller players who are the real innovators.

Let the AIA Reforms Have an Opportunity to Prove They Work

A recurring theme that can be traced through the patent reforms of the AIA to the current debate over patent litigation abuse is the issue of patent quality. A key component of the reported abuses is the assertion of allegedly invalid or overbroad patents, the very abuse for which AIA post-grant procedures were created, in order to improve patent quality. These matters of patent quality are being addressed by the changes made to the law by the Judiciary and by Congress in the AIA, which are only now beginning to be felt. It may well be premature to conclude that they are not doing the job. Take one major example, as a former Director of the USPTO in particular, I would support, as former Director Kappos did, giving the post-grant processes in the USPTO a chance to work.