The plan shuts down small companies – crushes innovation.

Before joining Expa, I was General Counsel at Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform. Kickstarter was a place for artists, creators, and entrepreneurs of all kinds to raise funds from their communities to bring their ideas to life. Thousands of restaurants, bookstores, podcasts, gaming companies, and creative spaces got their start on Kickstarter and have been able to sustain themselves through continued funding.

During my time at Kickstarter, we faced five patent troll suits, directed both at Kickstarter and our users. Each of these suits involved low-quality patents, and alleged infringement on the vaguest of terms. We spent more than four years fighting the first of these suits, spending several millions of dollars in total until, eventually, a court ruled that the patent claimed against us was invalid because it attempted to patent an abstract idea. This helped us to establish a precedent of fighting patent troll suits, credibly telling plaintiffs when they tried to come after us that we were prepared to litigate. By doing this, we were able to force them to drop their suits without putting up the tens—or even hundreds—of thousands of dollars that businesses are often forced to pay in order to continue operating under the threat of patent trolls.

Kickstarter was lucky to have the resources to fight these suits. Expa’s companies are at earlier stages of their business lives, stretching every dollar to build their products and their businesses. They do not have the same funds to stand up to patent trolls. But they, at least, can take advantage of a network that will help guide them through the terrifying world of patent litigation that opens up when they receive that first demand letter. Most small businesses do not have access to these kinds of resources. They find themselves facing these threats alone, and are forced to either pay a settlement or face years of costly litigation. These situations have a major impact on businesses, leading to changes in strategy, diversion of resources, deferred hiring, and even complete shutdown.

This is the reality that startups and small businesses face because of the proliferation of low-quality patents, particularly in the technology and software spaces. More than 40,000 software patents are granted in any given year. There are certainly many legitimate innovations among these. But too many of these patents are unreasonably vague or incomprehensible, allowing the kind of predatory and extortionist behavior I just described. Some recent developments have helped improve patent quality: the Patent and Trademark Office’s post-grant review process, known as the Inter Partes Review, that allows bad patents to be challenged after they have been granted; and the Supreme Court’s Alice v. CLS Bank decision, which helped clarify that abstract ideas and processes cannot be patented. But we have a long way to go. And we are heartened by the attention you and the rest of Congress are devoting to this important topic.

Today’s small businesses may look different than those of yesterday: they are startups and technology companies, in coworking spaces rather than storefronts, using the internet to reach not just their local communities, but global audiences as well. Yet startups still share so many of the same experiences, excitements, and struggles that small businesses have faced in every generation. They are few people putting everything they have into bringing an idea to life. They are balancing checkbooks, stretching dollars, and working around the clock to build their businesses. Whether that business starts as a small grocery store in Cincinnati and becomes the largest supermarket chain in the U.S., or builds a computer in a garage in California and then becomes the world’s largest technology company, the potential of small businesses is vast. And as startups and technology-based companies make up an ever-growing part of the small business landscape, it is incumbent on all of us to protect true innovation, and to allow these businesses to flourish free from the threat of predatory litigation.