The White House moved on Tuesday to crack down on abuses of the patent system, responding to mounting concern among technology companies over a flood of litigation which some say stifles innovation.
The latest moves target so-called “patent trolls” which, according to the White House, “hijack” ideas and take other companies to court with an eye to collecting license or royalty fees.
US President Barack Obama issued five executive orders and called for new legislation to update a reform enacted in 2011, a statement said.
“Innovators continue to face challenges from patent assertion entities ... that, in the president’s words ‘don’t actually produce anything themselves,’ and instead develop a business model ‘to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else’s idea,’” the statement said.
White House top economic aide Gene Sperling said there has been “an explosion of abusive patent litigation” in recent years.
“In the last two years, the number of lawsuits brought by patent trolls has nearly tripled,” Sperling said. “The victims of patent trolls paid US$29 billion in 2011, a 400 percent increase from 2005 — not to mention tens of billions dollars more in lost shareholder value.”
One of the signed orders calls for patent holders to have by default a “real party-in-interest” in a patent.
The order is aimed at creating more transparency by disclosing the true owners of patents and at preventing the use of secretive “shell companies” to hoard them.
The US president also signed measures aimed at ensuring “overall patent quality” to reduce the number of vague or broad patents which can be used to sue inventors.
The move drew praise from many US technology lobbying groups.
The White House action will help in “reining in abusive patent litigation,” TechAmerica’s Kevin Richards said.
“With the bipartisan support this issue enjoys, those great minds who are creating the next disruptive technology in their basement or dorm room can look forward to a system that preserves their idea,” he added.
Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association, also hailed the move, saying Obama’s action “is on the side of innovation and job creation and against the spineless parasites of society who ruin American businesses.”
The Internet Association said it “applauds the executive actions,” adding: “We echo the president’s call for legislation to put patent trolls out of business for good... patent trolls are nothing more than extortionists.”
Julie Samuels at the Electronic Frontier Foundation called the actions “big news” which address “dangerous aspects of the patent troll business model.”
Dennis Crouch, a University of Missouri patent law specialist, said the moves are generally “welcome and will benefit the patent system as a whole.”
“In fact, this move to finally address the problem of predictability of patent scope and patent validity hits the sweet spot of where problems emerge in the system,” Crouch said in a blog post. “Of course, the devil will be in the details of these approaches.”
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
CUSTOMERS’ BURDEN: TSMC already has operations in the US and is a foundry, so any tariff increase would mostly affect US customers, not the company, the minister said Taiwanese manufacturers are “not afraid” of US tariffs, but are concerned about being affected more heavily than regional economic competitors Japan and South Korea, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said. “Taiwan has many advantages that other countries do not have, the most notable of which is its semiconductor ecosystem,” Kuo said. The US “must rely on Taiwan” to boost its microchip manufacturing capacities, Kuo said in an interview ahead of his one-year anniversary in office tomorrow. Taiwan has submitted a position paper under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act to explain the “complementary relationship” between Taiwan and the US
Pegatron Corp (和碩), an iPhone assembler for Apple Inc, is to spend NT$5.64 billion (US$186.82 million) to acquire HTC Corp’s (宏達電) factories in Taoyuan and invest NT$578.57 million in its India subsidiary to expand manufacturing capacity, after its board approved the plans on Wednesday. The Taoyuan factories would expand production of consumer electronics, and communication and computing devices, while the India investment would boost production of communications devices and possibly automotive electronics later, a Pegatron official told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday. Pegatron expects to complete the Taoyuan factory transaction in the third quarter, said the official, who declined to be
RSS