House Subcommittee Advances TROL Act Patent Reform Legislation

In a 10-7 vote, the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade sent forward the Targeting Rogue and Opaque Letters Act (TROL Act) Wednesday, a House Commerce Committee news release said. “The TROL Act is a balanced solution to stop the practice of fraudulent and abusive patent demand letters, while preserving the ability of patent holders to legitimately protect their intellectual property,” the release said. “Abusive patent assertion entities (PAEs), or patent trolls, unfairly target small businesses and cost American companies tens of billions of dollars every year by threatening litigation. The TROL act seeks to increase transparency and accountability in patent demand letters and provides the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with the authority to levy fines on bad actors that send deceptive demand letters.” Subcommittee Chairman Michael Burgess, R-Texas, said the committee would continue to work to strengthen the legislation and encouraged stakeholders to participate. Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said he wouldn't support the bill because it “creates a disincentive to enforcement by tying the hands of state attorneys general and by creating barriers to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement that are simply too high.” The bill “would completely pre-empt the 20 laws that expressly address abusive patent assertion communications” and “severely constrains states’ ability to take an active role by limiting available remedies and placing an arbitrary cap on civil penalties,” Pallone said at the markup, according to opening remarks. “Just like with the data breach bill, if Congress seeks to pre-empt specific state laws -- especially on issues on which the states have been leaders fighting unfair and deceptive acts, such as false and misleading demand letters -- the federal effort should be at least as strong as those state laws,” Pallone said. Four amendments were introduced for the bill. One by Burgess was accepted on a voice vote, another was withdrawn. Amendments proposed by Democrats Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts were defeated on a partisan roll call vote.