Washington Examiner: Universities refuse to back Innovation Act, argue legislative efforts need to be more ‘narrowly tailored’, by Jessica M. Karmasek
This post originally appeared in Washington Examiner on April 16, 2015.
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – Two coalitions of universities say they will not back a piece of House-introduced legislation aimed at targeting so-called “patent trolls.”
The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and the Association of American Universities sent their response to the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association ahead of this week’s House committee hearing on the Innovation Act.
Earlier this month, Gary Shapiro sent a letter to 145 universities asking them to remove their names from a February letter in opposition to H.R. 9. The CEA is a trade body with more than 2,000 members, including tech giants Apple and Google.
The APLU and the AAU, on behalf of the universities, rejected CEA’s request in an April 8 letter.
“As the 145 leading U.S. research universities asserted in no uncertain terms in their letter of Feb. 24 to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, the higher education community stands united in opposition to the abusive practices of patent trolls,” APLU President Peter McPherson and AAU President Hunter Rawlings wrote in their three-page response.