US universities re-affirm opposition to patent reform
An association representing US universities and opposed to recent attempts to change the country’s patent system has re-affirmed its opposition to a patent reform bill currently going through Congress.
The Association of American Universities (AAU) has previously criticised the Innovation Act because it believes it will make it more costly for patent owners to assert their rights and deter private companies from investing in research at universities as a result.
The AAU re-outlined its fears in a letter sent to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), a trade body representing more than 2,000 US electronics companies, yesterday (April 8).
“The Innovation Act would significantly increase the overall risk and costs of legitimate patent enforcement for universities, start-up companies, licensees of university research, and all other patent owners,” the letter said.
The CEA had sent a letter to the AAU last week (April 2) asking it to change its stance on the Innovation Act, as part of its attempt to drum up support for the bill.
In the letter, the CEA claimed universities would benefit from the bill once it has passed because it would “restrict the most harmful abuses by patent trolls”.
The Innovation Act was re-introduced by Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, in February this year and is intended to clamp down on excessive litigation from non-practising entities, sometimes referred to as ‘patent trolls’.
The bill was originally introduced in 2013 but was withdrawn last year before being voted on because of concerns that it went beyond the scope of addressing ‘trolls’.
Goodlatte re-submitted a similar version of the bill because, reportedly, more people who were elected to Congress in the US’s mid-term elections in November last year are more likely to support it than before.
If approved the bill would require demand letters issued by patent owners to disclose information about who they are, which patent is being infringed, and details of any financially interested parties.
Legal costs in certain cases would also be altered so that a claimant that loses a case would have to pay the defendant’s fees. At the moment, this only happens in exceptional cases.
But the AAU’s letter disputed the plans.
It said: “The bill is founded on a highly unusual presumption in favour of fee-shifting that those asserting their IP rights would have to overcome.
“Singling out patent enforcement for exceptional and largely untested treatment in our civil litigation system would not only be detrimental to the economy as a whole, but also especially prejudicial to our country’s most innovative enterprises,” the AAU added.
Instead, the AAU has suggested that the Federal Trade Commission be given a more “muscular authority” to tackle abusive demand letters from NPEs.
