Thomas Massie: “Section 5 of this bill shares a common defect with the rest of this bill. Although well-intentioned, it will have bad…”

“Section 5 of this bill shares a common defect with the rest of this bill. Although well-intentioned, it will have bad effects on our patent law. In fact, it will affect legitimate patent-holders as much or worse than it would patent trolls. Section 5 of H.R. 3309, the Innovation Act, is entitled, ``Customer- Suit Exemption.'' This section inserts a new provision into the patent code: section 296, Stay of Action Against the Customer. The new section 296 would require a court to grant a motion to stay a patent infringement suit against certain ``covered customers.'' While well-intentioned, this section of the bill was not drafted in a careful and narrowly tailored way so as to achieve its purpose, which is to protect innocent customers, i.e., small retail customers involved in patent lawsuits. Instead, the broad language of section 296 would likely insert more confusion into an already complicated patent infringement suit process and cause harmful unintended consequences. For example, section 5's weakening of the right to sue downstream from the original manufacturer opens a new loophole for corporations to exploit--a huge loophole. It could allow a large computer corporation, for instance, to hide behind third-party chip manufacturers or third- party developers and thus continue to ship infringing products. The large computer corporation could thus construct a shadow shield against injunctions.…”