House Panel Passes Patent Demand Letter Bill

摘要

The House Energy and Commerce Committee's commerce, manufacturing, and trade committee on July 10 voted 13-6 to approve a draft patent demand letter bill that some Democrats said creates a loophole that could make it impossible ever to find a patent assertion entity in violation of the bill's provisions aimed at ensuring fair dealing with demand letter recipients. The problem, in the eyes of the opponents of the draft Targeting Rogue and Opaque Letters Act, is that the bill allows prior good demand-letter practices as evidence in a "good faith" affirmative defense. Full committee ranking member Henry A. Waxman (D., Calif.) said that the bill says that if a sender hasn't violated the bill in the past, "it couldn't be violating it now."