For years, major American tech companies have complained about the threat of intellectual property theft. The U.S. government has projected that Chinese companies flouting IP protections costs the American economy as much as $600 billion every year. But this problem of companies ignoring patents and other IP protections isn’t just a cross-border issue — there’s a similar issue right here in the U.S. If major tech companies seem less concerned about IP violations closer to home, that might be because in these cases they’re often the perpetrators, not the victims.
Big Tech Has a Patent Violation Problem
Congress needs to make it easier to enforce IP protections.
August 05, 2022
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Summary.
In the U.S., large tech companies regularly infringe on smaller companies’ intellectual property (IP). Often, this has led to large court settlements that punish larger companies. But, this enforcement mechanism has been weakened. In 2011, Congress created a tribunal within the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office called the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which has created a new avenue for major tech companies to challenge IP protections. New legislation would further enable this attack on IP protections, and ultimately harm the U.S. economy as a whole.