Congress must fight patent trolls

Main Street, Iowa, has had a tough few years. Many restaurants, shops, and hotels have struggled to stay afloat during the pandemic.

And at a time when many businesses are already facing challenges, too many small businesses have been confronted by yet another hurdle: so-called “patent trolls” or “nonpracticing entities.”

These NPEs or patent trolls are companies who exist only to purchase vague, low-quality patents and use them to threaten businesses with baseless lawsuits.

In one notorious example, an NPE purchased a patent that claimed to own the very idea of scanning a document to email — and then sent out letters to hundreds of small businesses around the country demanding they pay up.

For many small businesses, it’s cheaper and easier to pay off an NPE with a settlement than to go to court. With $29 billion lost in patent troll litigation each year, these growing, frivolous lawsuits have stymied innovation, directly hurting consumers and businesses in the process.

Congress has long recognized the damage that NPEs can inflict on small businesses and took action to fix it in 2011 through the passage of the America Invents Act (AIA). The bipartisan bill gave businesses a cost-effective way to challenge patent trolls and the validity of low-quality patents.

But in recent years, the AIA has been gutted by changes from the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, undermining the original intent of the law. As a result, bad actors continue to weaponize patents for their own financial gain.

We need Congress to take action again.

Fortunately, there is bipartisan legislation that can help. Last year, a bipartisan coalition introduced the Restoring the America Invents Act (RAIA) to protect innovators and small businesses.

Main Street can’t wait any longer for Congress to address the ongoing abuse of our patent system. Congress can fix this problem — they’ve done it before, and there is good legislation in the Senate right now that will help Iowa businesses. By passing the RAIA, we can ensure that our patent system supports our country’s innovators, businesses, and manufacturers.

As a leader in advanced manufacturing and innovative biotechnology developments, Iowa has a vested interest in ensuring our innovators are protected from unfair patent challenges.

Mike Ralston is president of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry.