{"id":22503,"date":"2015-02-25T17:06:20","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T22:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=22503"},"modified":"2015-02-25T17:10:29","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T22:10:29","slug":"cpac-patent-litigation-reform-panel-should-include-and-acknowledge-both-sides-of-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/22503\/cpac-patent-litigation-reform-panel-should-include-and-acknowledge-both-sides-of-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"CPAC:  Patent Litigation Reform Panel Should Include and Acknowledge Both Sides of Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week, conservatives from across the nation and even the globe congregate in Washington for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).<\/p>\n<p>Each year, CPAC features prominent conservative political figures, including prospective presidential candidates, as well as panels on various issues. \u00a0This year, appropriately, a <a href=\"http:\/\/cpac.conservative.org\/agenda\/\" target=\"_blank\">panel<\/a> is scheduled to address the important issue of patent reform.<\/p>\n<p>We at CFIF value and advocate strong intellectual property (IP) rights, including patent rights, as much as any organization. \u00a0At the same time, we support <a href=\"http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/atrfiles\/files\/files\/Supporting%20Patent%20Reform%20013014.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">patent reform<\/a> like that proposed by Congressman Robert Goodlatte (R &#8211; Virginia). \u00a0The way we see it, the problem of so-called &#8220;patent trolls&#8221; (which can be an overused and unfair term, as non-practicing entities have every right to enforce legitimate patent rights in court) is largely one requiring legal reform, rather than one justifying weakening of patent rights themselves. \u00a0Accordingly, we favor such reforms as requiring greater specificity in court pleadings, assessment of fees and costs to a greater number of improperly-litigious plaintiffs and discovery process reform.<\/p>\n<p>Opponents of patent reform legislation incorrectly claim that it will deprive judges of discretion in assessing fees, but the fact is that discretion will remain. \u00a0As we have detailed, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unitedforpatentreform.com\/patent-reform\" target=\"_blank\">what will change<\/a> is that the presumption in awarding costs and feels will shift on the continuum toward allowing innocent victims of vexatious plaintiffs to receive compensation for having to defend against unjustified lawsuits. \u00a0Reform opponents also claim that it would improperly chill the filing of lawsuits by legitimate plaintiffs. \u00a0But as any reasonable person realizes, the overwhelming problem in our current litigation system is not reluctance by plaintiffs to sue, but rather excessive willingness to sue.<\/p>\n<p>Accordingly, our hope is that the CPAC panel allows a full and fair presentation of both sides in this debate. \u00a0To do otherwise would be a disservice to attendees, the broader debate and CPAC itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, conservatives from across the nation and even the globe congregate in Washington for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Each year, CPAC features prominent conservative political figures, including prospective presidential candidates, as well as panels on various issues. \u00a0This year, appropriately, a panel is scheduled to address the important issue of patent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[872,2872,4544],"class_list":["post-22503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-cpac","tag-ip","tag-patent-reform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22503"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22507,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22503\/revisions\/22507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}