{"id":5637,"date":"2017-06-13T21:19:54","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T21:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpip.gmu.edu\/?p=5637"},"modified":"2026-02-03T20:55:54","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T20:55:54","slug":"cpip-co-founder-testifies-at-house-judiciary-committee-hearing-on-ip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/2017\/06\/13\/cpip-co-founder-testifies-at-house-judiciary-committee-hearing-on-ip\/","title":{"rendered":"[Archived Post] CPIP Co-Founder Testifies at House Judiciary Committee Hearing on IP"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"U.S.CPIP co-founder Adam Mossoff<\/a> testified<\/a> on June 13 before the House Judiciary Committee\u2019s subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet.\u00a0 He and other witnesses testified about the impact of the Supreme Courts recent decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC<\/a><\/em> on innovators and the possibility of future changes to patent law.<\/p>\n

For those not familiar with the decision, it held that patent lawsuits against corporations must be filed either where the corporation is incorporated or where it has infringed the patent and has a \u201cregular and established placed of business.\u201d This is different than the rule for most litigation which generally allows a lawsuit to be filed wherever a court may exercise jurisdiction over the corporation.\u00a0 Thus, TC Heartland<\/em> placed constraints on patent owners enforcing their rights that don\u2019t exist for other litigants.<\/p>\n

Although the hearing was nominally about TC Heartland <\/em>and venue for patent suits, Members of Congress and witnesses took the opportunity to address broader issues of innovation policy.\u00a0 In his opening statement<\/a>, Professor Mossoff primarily described how patent owners\u2014particularly individual inventors and small businesses\u2014will now be required to file multiple lawsuits all across the country to enforce their rights.\u00a0 This will drastically increase the costs of protecting their property from infringers, which for many innovators will be cost prohibitive.\u00a0 Professor Mossoff mentioned one such inventor, Bunch-o-Balloons inventor Josh Malone, who is being seriously harmed by the inability<\/a> to protect his invention from rampant infringement.\u00a0 Together with the litany of other recent disastrous changes<\/a> to our patent system, innovators are now in a precarious position when deciding to rely on patents to protect their inventions.<\/p>\n

Much of the hearing was taken up by questions of what the impact of the TC Heartland<\/em> decision will be.\u00a0 There was general agreement that the concentration of patent cases in only a few districts will continue.\u00a0 Under the old regime, many cases were filed in the Eastern District of Texas.\u00a0 Under the new regime, these cases will now be filed in the Northern District of California or the District of Delaware.\u00a0 There was also general agreement that this would benefit accused infringers, who will now be litigating in their preferred fora.<\/p>\n

\"AdamUnfortunately, much of the discussion centered around a perceived problem with patent \u201ctrolls.\u201d\u00a0 This epithet<\/a> based<\/a> on myths<\/a> is often used in the place of reasoned debate for patent policy.\u00a0 As Professor Mossoff explained,\u00a0as deployed in research and policy debates, this term\u00a0would make even famous inventors like Thomas Edison<\/a> a troll.\u00a0 Furthermore, it is both wrong and irresponsible to assume that patent owners who license their inventions are practicing an illegitimate business model. Just as it is perfectly legitimate for a landlord to rent her property instead of selling it, it is likewise perfectly legitimate for a patent owner to license her patent rights instead of manufacturing and selling products to customers. And just as it is legitimate for a landlord to sue a squatter for trespass, it is equally legitimate for a patent owner who licenses her property rights to sue for infringement.<\/p>\n

Several questions focused on broader patent issues in the context of whether or what Congress should do next for patent law. The Global Intellectual Property Center of the Chamber of Commerce recently reported that the United States had slipped from 1st to 10th in their annual ranking of patent systems.\u00a0 Reasons for the degradation of our patent system are obvious: death squads<\/a> killing patents at the PTAB, subject matter eligibility standards that make oil rigs outside the scope of patent laws<\/a>, and the inability<\/a> of patent owners to prevent others from infringing their rights through injunctions.<\/p>\n

As Professor Mossoff emphasized, Congress\u2019 first priority should be \u201cdo no harm.\u201d Rather than make another attempt to pass legislation further restricting patent owners’ rights, it would be better for Congress to simply do nothing.\u00a0 However, Congress could make the patent system better for innovators.\u00a0 One step already being discussed that would be a positive improvement is the suggestion<\/a> to amend<\/a> section 101<\/a> to limit the scope of the judicial exceptions to subject matter eligibility.\u00a0 At the hearing, Professor Mossoff astutely noted that the first patent ever issued in the United States\u2014being held up at that moment by Chairman Darrell Issa\u2014would likely be invalidated under current patent eligibility standards.<\/p>\n

Many questions directed at the witnesses asked for them to propose specific solutions to either perceived venue abuses or broader patent law issues. Professor Mossoff stressed that systemic changes to the patent system will not just affect a few bad actors, but all of the individual inventors, small businesses, universities, licensing companies, and R&D-intensive high-tech and bio-pharma companies who rely on the patent system to protect their innovations.\u00a0 These types of companies have been the fountainhead of the U.S. innovation economy for more than 200 years.\u00a0 “Reform” that only addresses the concerns of accused infringers, but not the costs to patent owners, is doomed to do more harm than good.<\/p>\n

Professor Mossoff’s written testimony can be found here<\/a>.\u00a0 Video of the hearing can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CPIP co-founder Adam Mossoff testified on June 13 before the House Judiciary Committee\u2019s subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet.\u00a0 He and other witnesses testified about the impact of the Supreme Courts recent decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC on innovators and the possibility of future changes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3627,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,34,35],"tags":[57,83,670,1065,1102,1432],"class_list":["post-5637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-innovation-2","category-legislation","category-patent-law","tag-patent-trolls","tag-adam-mossoff","tag-house-judiciary-committee","tag-patent","tag-patent-venue","tag-tc-heartland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3627"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15790,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions\/15790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}