Big Tech's Latest Shady Bid Aims to Squash it's Smaller Rivals
By Drew Johnson
Big Tech lawyers are riding high. A Delaware judge recently delivered a lengthy memo trampling the American justice system and supporting Big Tech’s longstanding efforts to crush smaller entrepreneurs.
Chief Judge Colm Connolly of the U.S. District Court of Delaware bit hook, line, and sinker on an absurd argument that the biggest and richest technology companies have been peddling for decades.
Connolly is attacking the practice of "third-party litigation financing." The funding source allows lenders and investors to help underwrite lawsuits on behalf of patent owners seeking to hold Big Tech accountable for infringement.
Who's funding a suit has no relevance whatsoever to whether infringement has taken place. This demand is a distraction -- exactly what the shady Big Tech defendants want.
Third-party funding is a normal part of our legal system. In fact, it's the only way many Americans can get their day in court.
Litigation is time-consuming and expensive. Most individuals and small businesses do not have the millions of dollars it takes to fight Big Tech – Google, YouTube and Apple, to name a few. That's why outside funding is so common. Justice would hardly be served if only the richest people and companies could go to court. Yet that's exactly what Big Tech wants.
Big Tech and its allies have launched a furious campaign against third-party financing. Ironically, today's biggest enterprises would never have thrived in their early years without strong intellectual property protections.
Strong IP laws are a bedrock of the U.S. economy. When one company steals another's intellectual property, the latter has a right to sue. But as once-innovative companies became massive, they hired armies of lobbyists and lawyers to press for self-serving legal changes.
These underhanded legal maneuvers have successfully tipped the scales in favor of the robbers and greedy corporations.
In the early aughts, a jury found that eBay had violated patents held by MercExchange. Yet on the question of whether this entitled MercExchange to a court-ordered ban on eBay using the stolen patents, the Supreme Court decided "no." This sent the message that at least one means of punishing patent thieves was off the table.
Big Tech companies adopted a strategy known as "efficient infringement." They appropriate another company’s invention, wait for the lawsuit, then fight it out in court, counting on their vast advantage in resources to wear down the small patent holder.
Small inventors who've seen their patented technology stolen don't stand a chance in court if they run out of cash. Hence, the recent rise of litigation finance in IP cases.
We shouldn't be surprised that gigantic companies are trying to pull up the ladder on younger, scrappier innovators. But it's sad to see that a federal judge would rather play on their team than fight for fairness.
Drew Johnson is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research. This op-ed first appeared in Fox News Opinion on www.FoxNews.com.
