USIJ Letter to Congress Supporting Director Iancu's Efforts to Improve PTAB

Dear Chairman Graham, Chairman Tillis, Ranking Member Feinstein and Ranking Member Coons,

By letter dated June 18, 2020, to the above Chairmen and Ranking Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and IP Subcommittee, a number of groups representing large incumbent technology companies object to efforts by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (“PTO”) to establish clarity and more balanced procedures for managing the institution phase of Inter Partes Reviews (“IPRs”). The Alliance for U.S. Startups and Inventors for Jobs (USIJ),1 however, strongly supports the effort by PTO Director Andrei Iancu to erect a more rational legal structure around the unbridled discretion that previously was given to the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (“PTAB”) in deciding whether to institute an IPR. In addition, we point out that the signatories of the June 18 letter are hardly neutral observers trying to preserve a system that treats both petitioners and patent owners evenly. They are instead trade associations and front groups for very large companies that benefit significantly from rules that make patents vulnerable to attack by infringers. The largest of the signatories is the so-called High Technology Inventor Alliance (“HTIA”), a group made up of ten of the largest corporations worldwide in the consumer electronics space, having collective annual revenues of nearly $1T and a combined market capitalization over $4T. Their complaints about “steep legal costs” arising from the mere existence of a system for protecting the intellectual property of inventors and entrepreneurs ring hollow.