Washington, D.C. (November 6, 2013) – More than thirty prominent tech startup investors sent a letter today urging Congress to enact broad patent reform. The letter, delivered by the App Developers Alliance, Engine Advocacy, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, calls on Congress to support reforms including making it easier to efficiently review patents at the PTO and increasing demand letter transparency.
“We are the fuel in America’s startup economy engine. We write to urge comprehensive legislation to address the troubling growth and success of the patent troll business model,” the letter states.
Investor quotes
Legislation should:
· Make it easier to efficiently review patents at the Patent Office, as an alternative to litigation.
· Increase transparency by requiring patent trolls to specify, in complaints and demand letters, which patent and what claims are infringed, and specifically how the offending product or technology infringes.
· Limit the scope of expensive litigation discovery.
· Require patent trolls to pay legal fees and other costs incurred by prevailing defendants.
· Protect end users of technology (e.g., wi-fi, printers and scanners, and APIs) from being liable for infringements by technology providers.
The patent reform legislation introduced by Chairman Bob Goodlatte (D-VA) last month would achieve many of these goals.
Signing the letter are dozens of startup investors including:….
About the Application Developers Alliance
The Application Developers Alliance is an industry association dedicated to meeting the unique needs of application developers as creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Alliance members include more than 25,000 individual application developers and more than 135 companies in the apps ecosystem.
