Many startups and tech nonprofits face legal harassment from patent holders that don’t make products but file lawsuits in the hopes of wringing settlements from businesses. These so-called patent trolls have been thorns in the side of small innovators for years. Now, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the agency that oversees the patent system, has proposed new rules that will encourage more costly legal harassment and will remove protections from smaller organizations and startups. Legislation introduced in Congress last month—the Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership (PREVAIL) Act—unfortunately includes many of the same changes.
When I served as the executive director of The Gnome Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to developing free open-source software, a patent troll sued us for patent infringement. This is common: Trolls initiate nearly 60% of all US patent litigation.
0 Commentaires