WASHINGTON, DC - The Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade today took action to protect consumers and small businesses by voting to advance the Targeting Rogue and Opaque Letters Act (TROL Act) by a vote of 10 to 7. The TROL Act is a balanced solution to stop the practice of fraudulent and abusive patent demand letters, while preserving the ability of patent holders to legitimately protect their intellectual property.
Abusive patent assertion entities (PAEs), or patent trolls, unfairly target small businesses and cost American companies tens of billions of dollars every year by threatening litigation. The TROL act seeks to increase transparency and accountability in patent demand letters and provides the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with the authority to levy fines on bad actors that send deceptive demand letters.
The subcommittee is working off a draft of the TROL Act that was advanced by the subcommittee last Congress, and is seeking to improve the bill in an effort to achieve the greatest protections without harming innovation or punishing those patent holders acting in good faith. The subcommittee today voted to accept an amendment to mirror the language in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act for bona fide mistakes as was suggested by the minority witness at last week’s hearing.
Chairman Burgess expressed that the committee will continue to work to strengthen the legislation and urged all stakeholders to come to the table. “There is no doubt that abusive patent demand letters can wreak havoc on smaller businesses and drive up costs for consumers. I hope more stakeholders will work with us within the confines of what we can do constitutionally to provide additional avenues of enforcement," said Burgess. “Our door remains open and we will continue to move forward. I hope that we can move forward together as opposed to splintering off and dividing at a crucial time."
