Gerard Scimeca – Chairman, CASE
July 10, 2020
Every day, dozens of government agencies implement the laws and regulations of the land; some are regularly in the news, while others are much lesser-known and understood by the American public. One agency that you may not be familiar with is the U.S. International Trade Commission, commonly referred to as the ITC.
The ITC’s role is to investigate cases where goods are being imported into the US unfairly. Unfortunately, in recent years, the ITC has become a favorite forum for patent trolls, who are misusing it at the expense of US consumers. This is becoming a big problem that consumers should know more about. So we created a short video to explain the ITC and this growing threat.
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Right now, we see a prime example of this threat in cases pending at the ITC filed by an Ireland based patent troll. As we explained in the Washington Times late last year, “A small cadre of financial wheeler dealers masquerading as a company called Neodron wants the ITC to ban a vast swath of mobile devices from the U.S. market. Neodron, incorporated late last year in Ireland, alleges that touchscreen devices from major U.S. companies Amazon, Dell, HP, Microsoft and Motorola and companies with massive U.S. presence like Samsung contain technology that infringes on its patents.
Bear in mind, Neodron did not actually invent anything or create new products or technological advances. It acquired a few patents, yelled ‘infringement’ and asked the ITC to ban the products in the hopes of getting a big settlement.” Neodron has now added a second complaint, sweeping in Apple as well, so it now threatens access to the U.S. market for more than 90% of the smartphones and tablets Americans rely on every day.
To make matters worse, of course, just a few short months ago, a pandemic began sweeping across the globe, making mobile technology more indispensable than ever. In Morning Consult, we called attention to the potential peril created by banning 90 percent of the smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices we use every day and asked readers, “Now, imagine if Neodron had petitioned the ITC a year earlier and an import ban had gone into effect last fall. By now, with the pandemic raging, consumers, first responders, students, health care providers and anyone engaged in online commerce could have found that the devices they need were inadequate, unavailable or priced out of reach.”
Amid the dramatic events of recent months and with a national election on the horizon, it is easy to lose sight of how susceptible government agencies are to misuse by clever operators. That is why CASE believes it is important for consumers to better understand the ITC and its ability to enact a sweeping ban on mobile technology or to force an unjust settlement to line the coffers of a patent troll – – either way, U.S. consumers end up paying the bill. It is time to pay attention!
