UPDATED 22:15 EDT / JULY 10 2017

NEWS

Tech giants form a new alliance to take on patent trolls

Many of the technology industry’s biggest companies today announced they’re joining forces in a bid to reform U.S. patent laws and tamp down so-called patent trolls.

The group includes Adobe Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Dell Technologies Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., Oracle Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc.

The companies have just created a new lobbying group called the High Tech Innovators Alliance, which will use their combined resources to push for new laws and rules around patents that make it more difficult for patent trolls to sue them and others. Patent trolls are companies that exist solely to buy up patents and use them in order to file infringement lawsuits against others.

“HTIA supports balanced reforms in the Patent and Trademark Office, the courts and Congress that address the root causes of these problems, while advancing a patent system that promotes investment in new technologies and American jobs,” the group said in a statement on Monday.

The group reckons that its members hold around 115,000 U.S. patents combined, and spent $62.9 billion on research and development in the last year.

HTIA sets out three goals in its manifesto, which include working with Congress to get new laws passed, pressing the Patent and Trademark Office to reform patent application reviews, and working with judges to change the way they decide patent awards.

“A well-functioning patent system can protect investments in R&D, and our members collectively own over 115,000 U.S. patents,” the group said. “But when the patent system does not function well, it undermines rather than supports innovation to the detriment of all Americans – inventors, employees, investors in productive businesses and ultimately, consumers.”

“The crisis of patent quality, baseless patent assertions, and the scourge of patent troll litigation are problems that must be remedied in order for the patent system to support high-tech inventors.”

The HTIA said in its announcement it’s already throwing its weight behind the Inter Partes Review program, which lets companies approach the PTO directly to challenge the legitimacy of patents that they think shouldn’t have been awarded. The constitutionality of this program has been challenged by Oil States International, a multinational corporation that provides services to oil and gas companies, and is currently undergoing a review in the Supreme Court.

In addition, the HTIA said it will push for more detailed explanations of patent infringement claims when they’re filed in court. It also said it wants to get courts to crack down on so-called “venue shopping,” which relates to patent litigants’ efforts to hold trials in jurisdictions where they believe the case will be heard by a more sympathetic judge.

Image: OpenClipart-Vectors/pixabay

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