Tech Executives Ban Together to Fight Patent Trolling
A confederation of tech executives have banded together in an attempt to lobby Congressional lawmakers in the US House of Representatives for laxer intellectual property laws. This is an odd occurrence, one would think that tech CEOs like these would want more stringent IP laws in order to protect their assets, but these executives maintain that whatever money more stringent laws saves them is easily undermined by substantial costs in litigation. Essentially, the strict laws make corporations more likely to feel like they can win their suits and thus spend more money on suits they believe they can win, which ultimately looses them money in the long run. One practice that was especially critiqued by this newly formed lobbying group was that some companies took advantage of broad patents in order to sue other companies for primary capital rather than producing their own goods. “They use the cost of litigation as a club to extort settlements out of companies that actually do things,” Van Lindberg, one of the lobbying executives, said to the House Judiciary’s subcommittee on intellectual property laws. These types of corporations are referred to as “patent trolls” and they are an enormous drain on intellectual property production. Fascinatingly enough, these patent trolls can only really exist due to excessive protections given to IP laws through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which sought to give corporations a stable grounding to rely on as the internet grew and shaped technology far faster than anyone could have ever predicted.
Consumers and free-internet activists have long bemoaned DMCA’s stringencies and overreaching authority and it now appears that even some producers are beginning to regret the oft-criticized legislation. Lindberg would go on to say that it’s not that protections in themselves are bad, it’s that the DMCA is so unilateral and unwavering in its legislative authority that it allows little wiggle room. Intellectual property should not be a uniform solution that reacts with the same way to all problems but must be, like the IP industry itself, flexible and evolve to meet different needs where they arise. Lindberg cited the music industry as an example where flexibility resulted in greater innovation, saying “There are some models, such as those of songwriters, that really do rely on exclusive control. But then there are models, such as that of Pandora, which rely on the ability to license and use that and to disseminate it as widely as possible. Both of these are important business models that we want to make sure that we encourage.” Given Pandora’s frequent legal battles with songwriters and the music industry, citing Pandora may seem odd for these intellectual property rights advocates. However, Lindberg’s larger point is that both of these systems are worthwhile and help to improve the industry as a whole even if they do come into conflict. However, if only one of these forms existed and it was given exclusive legal authority, it would undoubtedly diminish the industry and stifle creativity. This is essentially what patent trolling does, it impedes unique innovation by utilizing the law’s inflexibility as a tool for crushing up and coming products rather than using their own protection to create newly improved products without fear of infringement.
DMCA’s main concern for many years has been the prevention of piracy, but Lindberg questions the usefulness of that strategy. “Attempting to stop pirates is a waste of time. Show me an anti-piracy law or technology and I’ll show you a dozen 15-year-old girls and boys who can crack it,” he said before Congress. He believes that it is fundamentally impossible to stop piracy and that the industry’s time and energy is much better spent on innovating and producing better products. Ultimately, the laws, in his view, do more to restrict progress than they do to protect products and thus they should ultimately be relaxed, especially since patent trolling appears to be the more pressing industry concern right now. So far, Congress has yet to make any decision regarding the current lobbying efforts and the laws that are enabling patent trolling all remain in place. Still, Lindberg and his associates are hopeful that they can persuade Congress to change these laws soon.
Kevin James
Intern at
JAFARI LAW GROUP®, INC.