Dear Senator,
I write on behalf on [company name]. I am a [small] business owner who develops open source technology in the field of [short description]. I work hard, and my customers and employees depend on my business’s freedom to operate.

Many American businesses like mine are frequently targeted by patent trolls who assert invalid patents that were improperly granted. We in the open source community do not rely on the vague patents of trolls to innovate. We innovate ourselves. The USPTO issues hundreds of thousands of patents a year, a substantial percentage of which never should have issued in the first place. These patents are intellectual landmines—even though we could not possibly discover their existence, they can blow up our entire business.

For over a decade, the America Invents Act has provided a reliable and accurate check on patent validity, just as Congress intended.

The PREVAIL Act, which takes provisions of unpopular bills introduced and scuttled from previous Congresses and a USPTO rules package that had overwhelming opposition from the public, would serve to cut off administrative review, increase trial and litigation costs, and prolong unnecessary litigation. PREVAIL represents a step back in
American innovation.

Among other things, the PREVAIL Act would (1) increase parallel litigation and immunize abusive demand letters by introducing a standing requirement; (2) require the USPTO to uphold patents that are more likely than not invalid; (3) arbitrarily limit challenges to a single petition, regardless of the length of the patent or number of claims, (4) prohibit challengers from relying on prior art never even evaluated by the USPTO; and (5) incentivize extortionary litigation practices by limiting challenges to a single forum and conditioning estoppel on the beginning of a proceeding rather than its conclusion.

Despite these terrible consequences, the bill’s proponents seem intent to disregard the concerns many have raised with them and push this controversial bill forward. For the sake of small business, I urge you to stop them.

Sincerely,

[NAME]

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