A bipartisan group of senators introduced the PATENT Act today—the latest reform bill to take on patent trolls. Authored by Sens. Grassley, Leahy, Cornyn, Schumer, Lee, Hatch, and Klobuchar, the "Protecting American Talent and Entrepreneurship Act of 2015" is an important step toward stopping abusive patent litigation.
The bill is the Senate's response to the House's Innovation Act, and reforms a number of the same issues:
- heightened pleading standards to make it clearer why you’re being sued for patent infringement;
- protections to help end users who get sued for, say, using a wireless router they bought from their local Best Buy;
- curbing expensive discovery costs;
- shifting fees if a party’s actions are found unreasonable; and
- addressing abusive demand letters.
We’re excited to see the Senate introduce legislation that touches many aspects of the broken patent system, and we’ll have a full analysis of the PATENT Act soon.
