Patent Review Expansion Could Deter Trolls, Business Tells Congress

In a letter to key members of Congress, more than two dozen business groups called for the creation of “an efficient, inexpensive alternative to litigation” for fighting patent trolls by expanding a current U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review program. The PTO’s Covered Business Method gives threatened companies a substantially less expensive way to challenge questionable business method patents, but it’s currently limited to “financial services” patents. The signatories – including Airlines for America, the American Gaming Association, the National Association of Realtors, the National Retail Federation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation – urged Congress to expand the scope of CMB reviews, something the White House pushed for in June and the PTO has expressed support for.

Patent assertion entities – or patent trolls – sued nearly 7,000 businesses in 2011-2012, the business groups state in the letter, a four-fold increase since 2006. The average cost to a company defending a patent lawsuit is $6 million, and the groups estimate that patent troll litigation has cost American businesses at least $29 billion in 2011 alone.