Tell Congress No to H.R. 9: Don’t turn back the clock on American innovation

Dear Editor,

The bedrock of America’s financial strength is our vibrant innovation economy, the envy of other nations. Unfortunately, the patent rights that underpin our innovation economy have been steadily eroded by recent Supreme Court decisions and the four-year old America Invents Act. Decreased patent protections create short and long-term problems for everyone: established companies, small entrepreneurs, Universities, and risk-capital investors. Uncertain patent protection discourages investment in research and development of new products and new medicines across the board.

This fall, Congress appears poised to consider H.R. 9, misleadingly titled The Innovation Act. The legislation justly aims to address “patent trolls,” persons or companies in the business of infringement litigation. Patent trolls buy up patents with broad claims and then threaten innovators with litigation for products that supposedly infringe. Patent trolls do not create new products or develop new ideas; they use patents as legal weapons. The mere threat of litigation — at millions of dollars per suit —intimidates innovators, who will frequently pay a licensing fee or settlement to avoid litigation expense, even if their product did not infringe.

Thankfully, patent trolling is decreasing, according to a recent Price Waterhouse Coopers survey. While the issue does need to be addressed to accelerate that trend, H.R. 9 is written in overly broad language and goes far beyond what is necessary to address the patent system’s abuse from patent trolls. It has a number of unintended consequences for the very innovators H.R. 9 seeks to protect. As written, the legislation would force legitimate patent holders to engage in costly and lengthy legal battles just to defend their inventions from intellectual property theft. In addition to negatively impacting small patent owners, H.R. 9 would also decrease innovation across business sectors, decrease risk capital that fuels the innovation economy, and deprive America of our key strength as creators of new solutions to the big problems we face in healthcare these days.

We do not yet know the full impact of recent Supreme Court decisions on our U.S. patent system. It is highly likely that patent rights will need to be strengthened in the future, not weakened. By creating disincentives to enforce innovator’s patent rights, H.R. 9 threatens the nearly 90,000 jobs and $18 billion in economic output tied to bioscience in the state. Please join me in telling your Representative to vote no on H.R. 9.

Dr. Carol Nacy is Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sequella, Inc., and co-founder the Sequella Global Tuberculosis Foundation, a Rockville non-profit now known as Aeras that works on tuberculosis vaccines.