The US Parliament has passed a law against patent troll

The “The Innovation Act of 2013” bill passed through the House of Representatives - the lower house of the American Parliament. Both parties voted for him, with a general result of 325-91 . Such a unanimity is explicable: recently, stories about patent trolls who are trying to knock out fees from small business owners, hotels and restaurants, have caused a great public outcry.

What is important, the parliament successfully blocked amendments to the draft law , which tried to exclude critical items from it.

The hottest discussion was around the amendment, which excludes from the bill a clause on the transfer of court fees on the principle of "loser pays." The fact is that the US Democratic Party traditionally opposes such a principle, explaining its injustice in too small things. Indeed, it is somehow strange to pay a $ 100 fine and legal fees of $ 5,000. Therefore, the Democrats voted in favor of this amendment 174-18.
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In the case of patent trolls, this is not about any injustice, and the processes here are usually not limited to a hundred dollars. So you need to thank the Republicans who blocked the amendment 25-195. The overall result for the adoption of this amendment is 199-213.

Another amendment tried to weaken another key point of the draft law - the principle of delaying cases against technology users. Republicans tried to limit the effect of this principle only for companies with revenues up to $ 25 million. Voting result 144-266.

In the end, the parliament blocked another amendment from Democrat John Conyers, who tried to cut the bill and leave only the point about transparency in it. Probably, the attempt lobbied by intellectual property owners failed: 157-258.

As a result, the Parliament adopted only one amendment, which removes from the bill the old, rarely used in judicial practice rule that allows the patent owner to protect their intellectual property in the event that it cannot receive documents from the patent office.

The “The Innovation Act of 2013” ​​law is designed to stop the most egregious forms of trolling through several methods.

1. Detailed information . When submitting a claim to the court, it is imperative to provide information on which patents are specifically infringed and which products specifically are supposed to violate these patents and how. This rule makes it difficult for trolls to file lawsuits on a massive basis: a separate document must be drawn up for each defendant.

2. Translation of court fees . The court will receive the right to demand from the losing party to compensate for the legal costs incurred by the winner. This is a key moment, due to which the trolls are now successfully blackmailing the victims: they understand that even if they win in court, they will pay more than the troll demands.

3. Transparency . The law strictly requires the disclosure of the plaintiff, in whose interests he acts. Today, most trolls are one-day subsidiaries that are created for specific patents. If the company is a subsidiary, the defendant has the right to summon the parent company to the court to compensate the defendant for legal costs when the one-day company after defeat in court declares itself bankrupt and refuses compensation for costs.

4. Delayed cases against technology users . The law requires the court to suspend consideration of the case against companies-users of a serial product, if the manufacturer of this product agrees to transfer the lawsuit to itself. For example, in 2011, hundreds of hotels, cafes and restaurants paid a patent troll to Innovatio IP Ventures, LLC from $ 2,300 to $ 5,000 for "using a WiFi router in a public place." This was one of the first cases when the trolls used the new tactic of submitting hundreds of small claims to technology users instead of a large lawsuit to the manufacturer (there they would have no chance, and here at least a hundred thousand would collect a penny).

5. Reform of mandatory disclosure of documents to the court . Under current law, the plaintiff has the right not to give patent numbers and not to give other information until the defendant agrees to participate in the process and does not pay the court fee and other costs (which many do not risk going). If patent information were to be opened from the very beginning, the ridiculousness of the trolls' claims might immediately become apparent.

6. Review after issue . The law extends the ability to challenge already granted patents in a US patent office.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation approved the bill and called it the best bill against the trolls out of all who had gone before.