Patent Litigation Expenses Behind the Formation of the Inventors Defense Alliance
Patent litigation is expensive. Depending on the amount at stake, the cost of a patent litigation case can range from the hundreds of thousands of dollars to the millions of dollars. Understandably, the cost can be prohibitive for startups, small businesses, and individual inventors, especially when arrayed against large corporations.
Now a new organization, the Inventors Defense Alliance (IDA), has stepped up to provide advocacy on behalf of small patent holders. IDA states its goal as to “build support for inventors' rights, safeguard equal justice, and protect access to capital.”
IDA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501c(4) advocacy organization. Its leadership includes Professor Kristen Osenga, professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, as chief policy counselor, as well as the Hon. Paul R. Michel, former Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit, and Russell Slifer, former USPTO Deputy Director.
An initial focus of IDA is on protecting the rights of small companies and individual inventors to partner with financial firms to help defray litigation costs. With such partnerships, IDA contends, small patent holders are “able to afford the steep legal bills associated with defending their patents. If the inventors ultimately prevail, their investors may earn a return.” This “access to capital enables inventors to leverage their intellectual property in order to fight the big guys on a level playing field, [and] helps ensure that cases are decided on the merits, not by who has the deepest pockets.”
One advocacy area for IDA is opposing legislation that would “make it harder for inventors to access outside funding,” including proposed rules that would mandate disclosure of any outside funders of patent litigation. According to IDA, such rules would “offer no real benefits,” and would instead allow infringers to “use information gleaned from mandated disclosures to pressure investors supporting their opponents.”
Given the expense of patent litigation, and the great disparity in resources between parties to potential litigation, IDA’s mission on behalf of individual inventors and small patent-holders is a welcome balancing force.
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