NEW YORK – In a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this week, Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers and J.C. Penney CEO Myron Ullman weighed in on the importance of stopping what they call “economy-sapping patent trolls,” an effort that NACS has been actively involved with, through the United for Patent Reform coalition.

“Abusive patent litigation comes in many forms — meritless or overblown lawsuits against technology manufacturers; baseless and absurd claims against businesses that use technology; and tens of thousands of false and misleading demand letters against small businesses. The cumulative effect is to slow innovation, job creation and economic growth,” wrote Chambers and Ullman.

The writers cite a 2012 study by Boston University researchers, estimating that companies spent upward of $29 billion a year defending patent lawsuits, a problem that has continued in the years since. They cite another source, RPX Corp., stating that more than 3,600 companies and named defendants were sued by so-called patent-assertion entities in 2014, triple the number in 2006.

The op-ed is timely, with House Judiciary Chairman Robert Goodlatte’s reintroduction of his Innovation Act, which the House first passed in December 2013 with 325 “yes” votes, across party lines. While the bill died in the Senate, this new session of Congress represents a new opportunity to pass meaningful reform.

Goodlatte’s proposed bill includes a number of important reforms. For example, it would require disclosure of the actual basis for claims at an earlier point in the legal process, providing clarity and reducing defense costs. It would also require transparency as to who is filing the suit, so that multiple suits from the same owner can be detected. It also would strengthen the right of winning defendants in bad cases to recover their legal costs.

According to Chamber and Ullman’s op-ed, “These reforms would help level the playing field to ensure that suits that actually have merit go forward and be resolved through the courts, while those that are frivolous and abusive are deterred, denied and diminished.”