In today’s economic climate, America’s small businesses are under attack. Not only must they comply with onerous government regulations, but they increasingly face lawsuits filed by patent trolls, who work with trial lawyers to target innovators with claims of infringement on dubious grounds.

Rather than create new products and technologies themselves, trolls abuse our patent system to extort businesses into settlements that can cost upwards of a million dollars. Using vague, low-quality patents that should never have been granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, trolls destroy the incentive for American entrepreneurs to create new businesses one frivolous lawsuit at a time.