Patent trolls, companies formed for the sole purpose of buying up intellectual property to extort money from other companies with copyright infringement lawsuits, are on the agenda of Congress once again, after repeated failures to pass bipartisan legislation to curb the problem.
“In recent years, however, some bad actors have abused the patent system in ways that detract from its purpose,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said at a hearing on Wednesday. “Small businesses in Vermont have been threatened with patent suits simply for using office equipment they purchased off the shelf.”
For instance, in May, Google was ordered by a Texas court to pay $85 million to SimpleAir for the use of push notification messages on its Android operating system.
The burden imposed by patent trolls on the economy has steadily risen in recent years, with annual costs rising from $3.6 billion in 1984 to $61 billion in 2009. One study puts the cumulative cost of patent trolling from 1990 to 2010 at $579 billion.
The Innovation Act passed overwhelmingly in the House in 2013 to modify copyright infringement laws, but was held up in the Senate. Then Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was widely believed to be responsible for quashing the bipartisan bill due to lobbying from trial lawyers. The bill was reintroduced in the House in February, with 9 Republicans and 10 Democrats co-sponsoring the bill.
