United for Patent Reform (UFPR) appreciates the opportunity to respond to the request for comments on USPTO Initiatives to Ensure the Robustness and Reliability of Patent Rights published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO” or “Office”) in the Federal Register.
UFPR is a broad coalition of diverse American businesses advocating for a patent system that enhances patent quality, advances meaningful innovation, and protects legitimate American businesses from abusive patent litigation.
While many of UFPR’s members are patent holders, a greater percentage hold no patents at all, and their only interaction with the patent system is getting sued or threatened with suit by a patent holder, typically a non-practicing entity (NPE). More often than not, this is on the basis of vague, over-broad patents that should not have issued in the first place, and primarily for technology where the targeted business is simply an end user of the product at issue, and not the creator of the product itself. This is why UFPR cares deeply about the patent system and making sure that it works so that the benefits of innovation can be experienced by all Americans, while the harms of abusive litigation are not.
Read full statement here.
