Bill Aims To Reduce Frivolous Patent Marking Lawsuits

Press Release

Bill Aims To Reduce Frivolous Patent Marking Lawsuits

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), along with Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-TX) have introduced legislation aimed at stopping frivolous patent litigation related to the marking of products.

"Our bill discourages deceptive patent marking while simultaneously moving to eliminate frivolous lawsuits," said Rep. Issa. "This is a commonsense effort that protects consumers from higher costs created by abusive lawsuits."

Current law allows any individual to sue a manufacturer for falsely marking a product for $500 (the government gets $250, the plaintiff gets $250). Suits filed under this law have been steadily rising over the past few years with individuals with no reasonable standing filing dozens of suits hoping for a quick settlement. This had been a rarely used law, but recently the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that damages flowed from not one infringing product, but from every instance of that product. This meant that if you manufactured 10,000,000 Styrofoam cups, each with the wrong patent number on it, you could be liable for $5,000,000,000. This was not the intent of Congress.

HR 4954 amends the Patent Act by limiting standing to sue to competitors who have actually been damaged and only for "damages adequate to compensate for the injury."

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