Washington, D.C. – The Application Developers Alliance urged the House Energy and Commerce Committee to inhibit patent trolls’ abusive demand letters with the strongest possible law during markup of the legislation.
Statement from Jon Potter, President, Application Developers Alliance:
“Meritless demand letters meant to extort businesses for unjustified payments must be stopped. We support the Committee’s legislative path on this issue, but we urge the Committee to add to the bill even more robust mechanisms for deterring trolls from sending abusive patent demand letters, and for punishing trolls when they send abusive demand letters.”
“The Federal Trade Commission’s weak settlement with patent troll MPHJ demonstrates the need for Congress to clarify that the FTC has — and should use – its authority to punish senders of deceptive patent assertions that are intended to extort unjustified royalty payments. The TROL Act should do this more forcefully and more effectively”
The Application Developers Alliance supports legislative reforms that undermine the patent troll business model without harming legitimate patent enforcement. The Alliance supports policies that short-circuit frivolous litigation, address the imbalance in litigation burdens, and ensure transparency and specificity in demand letters and complaints.
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.
