The House Judiciary Committee chairman brought up a bill that targets abusive practices by companies that buy up patents for the purpose of extracting settlements, otherwise known as patent trolls.
He emphasized that the legislation is meant to target abuse, not specific entities. And he has the support of several technology companies, retailers, and restaurant associations.
One of the key things in this bill is that it would limit the amount of discovery necessary. This means that this could remove a tool used by the trolls to run up the costs of litigation in order to extract a settlement. The bill calls on the Judicial Conference of US to come up with rules to allow for additional discovery if the party making the request pays the cost.
The entire legislation passed 325-91 in the congress. Reading about this article made me realize how big of an issue patent troll is and I am glad that the government is taking good measures to cut these trolls. The votes in the congress really portray the one-sided argument here, which is that patent trolls are abusive and deserve to be more closely monitored.
I'm glad that the legislation passed this bill unanimously. Patent trolls need to be stopped.
ReplyDeleteHey Michael,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, great work! I really like how you chose this topic to be your week 9's blog post, and I definitely think it is a topic people should learn about. I like how you highlighted key things of the bill, and I am so glad the bill was passed unanimously!