Patents are the engine of innovation. They protect inventors’ intellectual property, incentivizing them to invest time and resources to create new technologies and products that make us all better off. But not all patents are created equal.
Shell companies, known as patent trolls or patent assertion entities, acquire low-quality patents and use them to file frivolous patent infringement lawsuits, extorting billions of dollars from American manufacturers, startups, small and medium sized businesses, and inventors every year. These shell companies are often funded by overseas investors, which use the lawsuits to profit while gaining an advantage over their U.S. competitors, slowing American innovation, and jeopardizing our national security.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office can protect American innovators by reviewing and canceling these bad patents. The process – known as inter partes review and executed by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board – is the first line of defense to shield manufacturers and businesses of all sizes from costly legal attacks.
But now, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has proposed a new set of rules that would gut its own review process. If enacted, the rules would both violate the law and leave the American economy exposed to even more predatory shell company lawsuits.
As American businesses work to overcome rising costs and foreign competition, they can’t afford to be targeted with even more abusive lawsuits.
SUBMIT A COMMENT NOW and tell the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to PUT AMERICAN MANUFACTURERS FIRST by withdrawing its new rulemaking proposal, titled Revision to Rules of Practice Before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.