FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sarah Elliott – sarah@appdevelopersalliance.org
App Developers Alliance Calls for the House to Pass Patent Reform Bill
Critical Reforms Needed to Protect Startups and App Developers from Patent Trolls
Washington, D.C. (June 11, 2015) –The Application Developers Alliance thanked the House Judiciary Committee for moving the Innovation Act (H.R. 9) a significant step closer to enactment today by passing it 24 -8.
“We appreciate the hard work of the House Judiciary Committee on this bill, which will provide important protections for small innovators and entrepreneurs” Jon Potter, President of the App Developers Alliance. “Abusive patent trolls are a tax on entrepreneurship and job creation. The Innovation Act will help to improve the imbalance in litigation and is a critical investment in our future.”
The Apps Alliance particularly supports two provisions that were improved by the Committee today:
- The bill’s venue provision was strengthened so that trolls will only be able to file lawsuits in courts that are located where either the troll or the defendant has legitimate standing. No longer will trolls be able to rent empty offices in small towns just to file their frivolous lawsuits in plaintiff-friendly courts.
- The bill’s discovery stay provision was also improved, ensuring that aggressive trolls cannot force small company defendants to needlessly spend money while a court is determining whether it will even hear the case, or whether the patent is valid.
Though the Innovation Act is a good bill, it still does not address the growing problem of abusive patent demand letters or vague lawsuit pleadings. The Alliance urges the Committee to require trolls to disclose all details of infringement assertions early and accurately – in demand letters and in judicial complaints.
More information is available here.
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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.
