Congress Must Stop Pushing Bills That Will Benefit Patent Trolls

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The U.S. Senate is moving forward with two bills that would enrich patent trolls, patent system insiders, and a few large companies that rely on flimsy patents, at the expense of everyone else. 

One bill, the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would bring back some of the worst software patents we’ve seen, and even re-introduce types of patents on human genes that were banned years ago. Meanwhile, a similar group of senators is trying to push forward the PREVAIL Act (S. 2220), which would shut out most of the public from even petitioning the government to reconsider wrongly granted patents. 

Take Action

Tell Congress: No New Bills For Patent Trolls

Patent trolls are companies that don’t focus on making products or selling services. Instead, they collect patents, then use them to threaten or sue other companies and individuals. They’re not a niche problem; patent trolls filed the majority of patent lawsuits last year and for all the years in which we have good data. In the tech sector, they file more than 80% of the lawsuits. These do-nothing companies continue to be vigorous users of the patent system, and they’ll be the big winners under the two bills the U.S. Senate is considering pushing forward. 

Don’t Bring Back “Do It On A Computer” Patents 

The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act, or PERA, would overturn key legal precedents that we all rely on to kick the worst-of-the-worst patents out of the system. PERA would throw out a landmark Supreme Court ruling called the Alice v. CLS Bank case, which made it clear that patents can’t just claim basic business or cultural processes by adding generic computer language. 

The Alice rules are what—finally—allowed

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