Tell Your Senator to Support the PATENT Act

It's time to put a stop to patent trolls. This is the year to pass strong patent reform. Tell your senators to support S. 1137, the PATENT Act.

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Last year, patent reform stalled in the Senate. This year is different.

A strong, bipartisan coalition—Sens. Grassley, Leahy, Cornyn, Schumer, Lee, Hatch, and Klobuchar— has introduced the S. 1137, PATENT Act—the Protecting American Talent and Entrepreneurship Act of 2015. It includes much-needed reforms to discourage patent trolling and empower innovators to fight back against bad actors.

Patent trolls buy up patents and use them offensively against unsuspecting businesses—without creating or selling anything themselves. Making broad claims of infringement based on patents of questionable validity is the troll's favorite move. Most defendants choose to settle because patent litigation is risky and expensive, and trolls offer settlement amounts that are burdensome, yet far cheaper than a lawsuit. Businesses who are targeted—including cafés running Wi-Fi and app developers—lose both time and money, and innovation suffers.

The PATENT Act goes a long way to fix these problems—and it could go even farther.

Let's put a stop to patent trolls for good this year. Send a message to your senator asking them to support the Patent Act (S. 1137).

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Sample message:

As your constituent, I'm emailing you today to urge you to support the PATENT Act of 2015 (S. 1137).

The PATENT Act features important reforms aimed at stopping patent assertion entities—commonly known as "patent trolls"—who take advantage of loopholes in our current patent system in order to chill innovation and harm small businesses. Trolls extort money from these businesses by threatening expensive lawsuits and forcing settlements.

The bipartisan PATENT Act introduces important litigation reforms—from heightened pleading standards to a strong customer stay—to stop trolls in their tracks, without implicating owners of high-quality patents who are acting properly. I'd like to see it improved, though: the legislation should tackle the issue of low-quality patents; it should feature stronger fee-shifting language; and it should include stronger provisions to prevent discovery abuse such as those found in the Innovation Act. It should also address the problem that trolls can unfairly game the system by choosing to sue in the jurisdiction most likely to rule in their favor.

I urge you to pass this legislation that empowers innovators to fight back against bad actors. Please stand by job creators and support the PATENT Act (S. 1137).

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