Qualcomm, on Patent Law

By Don Rosenberg, General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Qualcomm

A Letter to the Editor, in response to “Curbing Abusive Patent Lawsuits” (New York Times editorial, May 6)

I agree with your call for balanced legislation addressing problems in patent law, but the omnibus patent bills in the House and the Senate are sweeping measures that would treat all patent holders seeking to enforce their rights as “trolls.”

The bills are influenced by headline-catching “studies” using privately held and generated data to paint the picture of a patent crisis that doesn’t exist. According to federal data and respected academics whose data are available to all, the number of patent litigation cases as a percentage of patents issued has been shown to be stable over decades.

Also lost in the debate is how much courts are already dealing with issues mentioned in the editorial, and that every definition of “troll” includes universities and small inventors who license the fruits of their research and development rather than manufacture and market them.

In contrast, the House’s TROL Act targets only bad actors who abuse the system. The patent system’s incentivization of innovation is too important to jeopardize with sledgehammer legislation when narrowly targeted measures will do.