Contact: Chris Grimm – cgrimm@appdevelopersalliance.org
Statement from the Developers Alliance on the House Judiciary, Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet Hearing on the TC Heartland Decision
Washington, D.C. – Below is a statement from the Developers Alliance Senior Advisor Bruce Gustafson regarding the House Judiciary, Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet hearing on the Supreme Court’s TC Heartland decision.
“No one feels the impact of patent trolls more than the small companies that are the heart of US innovation. With limited resources and narrow market windows, the start-ups in the developer community are particularly vulnerable to the extortion of trolls wielding dubious patents in a legal system with a cost of entry beyond a small firm’s means. Start-ups are shuttered, jobs are lost, and dreams die over and over, despite the fact that everyone agrees the claims these trolls make are unsupportable.
While we welcome the latest venue guidance handed down by the Supreme Court, it remains to be seen how much this change will improve things for our developer members. The cost of defending a dubious claim, and the ease with which these claims can be made, still creates incentives for shakedown settlements. On behalf of developers and entrepreneurs across the country, we ask Congress to closely monitor the impact of this ruling and to continue to work on relieving the burden of nuisance litigation on small innovators.”
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The Developers Alliance is the world’s leading advocate for software developers and the companies invested in their success. Alliance members include industry leaders in consumer, enterprise, industrial, and emerging software development, and a global network of more than 70,000 developers.
