White House Issues Report On Patent Assertion And Innovation

On June 4, the Executive Office of the President issued a report entitled "Patent Assertion and U.S. Innovation." The stated purpose of the report is to address challenges posted by "patent assertion entities" (PAEs), which the report defines as entities that"use patents primarily to obtain license fees rather than to support the development or transfer of technology."

The report estimates that in the past two years, PAEs filed 62% of all patent infringement suits. It also cites to a "range of studies [that] have documented the cost of PAE activity," but it provides no firm estimates of those costs, and it's not clear whether those studies include the same definition of "patent  assertion entities" that the President's report uses.