Law Commons^™

Patent Trolls And Preemption, Paul Gugliuzza

Faculty Scholarship

Patent law is usually thought to be the domain of the federal government, not state governments. Yet over half the states have recently passed statutes outlawing unfair or deceptive assertions of patent infringement. The statutes are aimed at fighting so-called patent trolls, particularly those who send letters to users of allegedly infringing technology — as opposed to the manufacturers of that technology — demanding that each user purchase a license for a few thousand dollars or else face an infringement suit. The Federal Circuit, however, has held that state law claims challenging acts of patent enforcement are preempted by the …