UT Business Leaders and Startups Call on Congress to Pass Patent Reform
South Jordan, UT – Today, the Application Developers Alliance and the Utah Technology Council hosted Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), as well as Utah entrepreneurs and business owners, for an in-depth patent reform discussion. The conversation, which included victims of patent abuse, focused on the urgent need for Congress to pass comprehensive legislation to protect businesses from patent trolls. In his role as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Lee spoke to business owners about the importance of addressing abuses in the patent system and the need for Congress to enact meaningful reforms.
“America’s patent system fuels the innovation and growth that keeps America’s technological sector the envy of the world. However, abusive patent practices need to be addressed quickly, to restore confidence in our patent system,” saidSenator Mike Lee. “In the past, I have worked closely with Utah’s technology sector to introduce bipartisan legislation addressing these abuses.”
“I was honored to join Senator Lee today in Utah where we heard from local companies affected by patent trolls,” said Tim Sparapani, VP of Law, Policy, and Government Relations at the Apps Alliance. “Patent trolls are costing our Main Streets billions. This is money that is not spent on innovation or growing our economy. Congress has a responsibility to protect our job-creators and economy from this unethical behavior and should pass comprehensive patent reform legislation that will help America’s innovators fight back against patent trolls.”
The roundtable was hosted at LANDDESK. Other participants included Oracle, Adobe, Overstock.com, SanDisk, Control 4, Bluehost, AT&T, inthinc, the Utah Trucking Association and others.
The Application Developers Alliance represents entrepreneurs and innovators of all sizes who believe Congress has a responsibility to take action on patent reform legislation. Many lawsuits are brought by patent litigation companies that do not develop products or offer any service, but rather extort and extract unfair fees from innovators. The Alliance supports strong patent reform legislation that promotes real innovation by improving patent quality, prohibits trolls from sending vague enforcement threats, and curbs abusive patent litigation.
More information is available at TrollFighter.com.
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The Apps Alliance is a non-profit global membership organization that supports developers as creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs. We promote app industry growth and advocate on behalf of our members on public policy and industry issues. The Apps Alliance serves more than 36,000 individual members and more than 200 companies, including app publishers, platforms, wireless carriers, hardware manufacturers, ad networks, enterprise tools and service providers.
