Cuban, McKelvey ask Congress for patent reform

An open letter signed by startup investor Mark Cuban and St. Louis tech entrepreneur Jim McKelvey, among others, asks Congress to pass broad patent reform.

McKelvey told St. Louis Business Journal patent reform was the single most important thing the government could do to spur economic activity in the technology sector, and he singled out so-called patent trolls as a major hindrance to innovation.

Patent trolls are nonpracticing entities that buy patents and enforce patent rights against others with no intention to develop products or services.

The practice banks on lucrative legal battles, and McKelvey called it “blackmail” for inventive companies and their venture capital or angel investors. Patent troll lawsuits are said to have cost defending companies $29 billion in 2011.

The letter asks for legislation to:

• 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.

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