“Entrenched Patent Protected Companies Who Dominate Markets Want to Weaken Our Patent System,” Warns Dan Leckrone, Chairman of The TPL Group

“Trojan Horse” Legislation Now Before Congress Favors Infringers Over Inventors

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In the attached opinion piece that will publish tomorrow in Electronic Design (www.tplgroup.net/news/EDPointofView.pdf), a major trade publication, Dan Leckrone, Chairman of The TPL Group, warns that large patent-intensive corporations are attacking our Patent System, which has effectively protected the intellectual property of inventors for more than two centuries. He states that the attack has come in the form of “Trojan Horse” legislation strongly supported by industry Goliaths intent on expanding their monopolistic powers.

“The so-called ‘Patent Reform Act’ (H.R. 1908 and S. 1145) now before Congress proposes a major overhaul of our venerable Patent System, and this should be of great concern to individual inventors and entrepreneurial companies as well as investors who back them,” cautions Leckrone. “If enacted, this legislation will dramatically weaken our Patent System, sound a death knell to our venture capital system, and trigger a dramatic decline in our ability to compete around the world.”

Supreme Court Decisions Preempt Proposed Reforms

Leckrone points out that the well-funded and entrenched market dominators promoting major changes have focused on the most extreme (and infrequent) examples to use their influence to rush Congress into throwing out the baby with the bath water. He further cited recent Supreme Court decisions (EBay 2006; and Medimmune and KSR in 2007) that must be considered carefully before any further changes to the Patent System are made, and urges elected representatives to weigh carefully the impact of their implementation in the lower courts and in the patent office.

Mandating Apportionment Unfair

Among the changes being pushed by industry Goliaths, one of the most egregious according to Leckrone is the mandating of apportionment. More specifically, rather than the well-established current market based determination of a reasonable royalty, the court will be required to calculate “the economic value properly attributable to the prior art, and other features or improvements, whether or not patented, that contribute economic value to the infringing product or process.” Commenting on this proposal, Leckrone said, “In addition to its impracticality as noted by the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit, the result is a major reduction in the reasonable royalty to the disadvantage of the patent owner and great advantage to the infringer.”

Key to Improving Patent Quality

“Our Patent System has been a treasure to our country and it deserves better than a rushed passage of seriously flawed legislation,” asserted Leckrone. “Lost in the pressure for change is the recognition that the key to improvement will come from our support of the talented men and women who work in the patent office. It is they who are charged with examining and issuing quality patents worthy of their constitutional basis. We need to help the patent office continuously improve the quality of the examination so that only worthy patents are issued.”

Growing Opposition to the Patent Reform Act of 2007

According to TPL, opposition to the so-called Patent Reform Act continues to grow across America with inventors, venture capitalists, universities, trade associations, and labor organizations voicing their concerns. The TPL Group, which has made it a high priority to spread the word about the flawed legislation before Congress, is urging all Americans to write to their elected representatives before Congress takes its summer recess on August 6th. To help others communicate their concern, the company has posted abundant resources on its website at www.tplgroup.net/legislation along with contact information for elected representatives.

About The TPL Group

Founded in 1988, Technology Properties Limited (The TPL Group) has emerged as a global coalition of high technology enterprises involved in the development, management and commercialization of Intellectual Property (IP) assets as well as the design, manufacture and sales of proprietary products based on these same IP assets. Among the advanced products that The TPL Group enterprises continue to bring to market are system-on-chip solutions for distributed digital media processing applications. For more information, visit www.tplgroup.net.