Congress needs to amend the Patent Act to...

current version of the act does not protect small and medium-sized businesses against PAEs’ “victimization and frivolous lawsuits,” Dawson said in the letter, released Monday. Small and medium-sized businesses comprised 90 percent of the defendants in PAE-initiated lawsuits between 2005 and 2011, with such lawsuits costing all defendants and licensees $29 billion in 2011, Dawson said. “This is particularly troubling to our industry and to our membership because we are often the target of these frivolous lawsuits which can cost a single company millions of dollars to litigate,” he said. “The broader effect is to hamper innovation, which is exactly the opposite of what the patent system was designed to encourage.” Any amendment to the Patent Act should be narrowly focused on protecting true end users, and should include protections for end users against patent infringement claims, because PAEs have been known to sue end users, which further drives up the cost of settling lawsuits, Dawson said. An amendment to the Patent Act should also clearly define an “end user item” as any product that is sold publicly and used as intended, he said. End users shouldn’t “be required to pay for damages for using this kind of product or risk being enjoined from using the product,” Dawson said (http://bit.ly/YAieuj).