Top multinationals urge EU to stop patent trolls

Top multinationals such as BMW, Microsoft and Apple called on the European Union to prevent patent trolls that buy patents to make a profit through licences or lawsuits.

In a letter to the European Commission, the group of 35 companies and four industry groups warned that patent trolls were damaging innovation.

“Automatic injunctions make Europe more and more attractive to patent assertion entities (PAEs), also known as ‘patent trolls’. As the litigation environment has become less hospitable to PAEs in theUS, we have witnessed their rise in Europe,” the letter reads.

“These entities do not make, sell or invent anything––they simply exploit patents they have purchased. The EU needs to ensure the measures it has in place are effectively implemented to stop PAEs from exploiting the imbalances in Europe’s patent system,” it adds.

In the past, judges have issued blanket bans on products when just a single patent was found to be infringed.

“The experience of our member companies indicates that Europe’s patent system is not working properly and is undermining Europe’s ability to compete globally in the next frontier of technologies,” said Patrick Oliver, executive director of IP2Innovate, one of the industry groups that signed the letter according to the Financial Times.

“We are urging Commissioner (Thierry) Breton to draft a set of guidelines that address imbalances in the patent system — in particular guidelines that support the application of a proportionality requirement in patent enforcement by judges around Europe, as required by EU law."