Stop Patent Trolls: Support the Innovation Act of 2015
This law would take the most effective tool against trolls and weaken it without providing any real relief for innovative small companies targeted by trolls.The post-grant review process is the only way patents get a serious review of their validity. The PTO actually takes printed references found by accused infringers that pay a five-digit fee as reviews the patent. It's essential because the original pre-grant review only allows a few hours of research and examiners are rewarded only for issuing patents so it's hard for one to be bad enough to be rejected.This bill would make it much harder to revoke patent claims by prohibiting the reasonable interpretation standard. It would also entitle trolls to demand new claims by making trivial adjustments in wording without any serious review so that winners who get bad patents revoked have to immediately face new bad patents.Meanwhile the loser pays provision is so weak that it provides no hope to small businesses and little to large ones. East Texas judges have already shown it won't apply in their courts.The pleading requirements have already been enacted by the Supreme Court this month.This bill has been so watered down that it's worse than the status quo. EFF should oppose it.