CEA Won’t Commit to Joining United for Patent Reform Coalition

CEA stopped short of declaring its intention to join United for Patent Reform, the coalition started last week by the National Retail Federation to seek legislation to reduce abusive patent litigation (see 1501150035). United for Patent Reform “is a strong and broad coalition that plays a critical role, and we are considering how we can be most helpful," said Michael Petricone, CEA senior vice president-government affairs, in an emailed statement Friday. Several tech and telecom companies belong to the coalition -- Adobe, Amazon, Cisco, Dell, Facebook, Google, Oracle and Verizon -- as do several trade associations, but no trade groups from the tech industry. CEA has identified patent reform as one of its top legislative priorities in the new Congress (see 1411050022).