Alexander Poltorak penned an op-ed piece on why the new SHIELD Act will really only shield large companies who are infringing the patents of smaller entities. ("Proposed SHIELD law is nothing but a gift to infringers" TheHill.com - August 10, 2012)
Article excerpt:
Existing laws that aim to prevent frivolous lawsuits are equally applicable to both parties. But the SHIELD Act unfairly aims to penalize only plaintiffs — in this case, the patent owners. There is no provision to protect against frivolous declaratory judgment cases filed by infringers to intimidate patent owners, or meritless reexaminations filed by infringers to hold up the court proceedings.
Supporters of the Shield Act are the same computer industry monopolists that sponsored the Patent Reform Act of 2010 that passed into law as the America Invents Act. It comes as no surprise that this latest piece of their legislative initiative singles out computer software and hardware patents, which are the sole subjects of this proposal.
If the current legal framework is so bad, one has to wonder why the Shield Act singles out computer technology patents and doesn’t apply across the board. The reason: the computer industry lobbyists who drafted the legislation ingeniously crafted it to avoid provoking the wrath of big pharma, who almost derailed their attempts to pass patent reform last time around. The SHIELD Act is nothing more than a 21st Century version of pork-barrel legislation.