(RALEIGH) Attorney General Josh Stein today led a bipartisan coalition of 27 Attorneys General in filing an amicus brief supporting Idaho’s anti-patent troll law. Patent trolls are businesses that largely exist to bring patent infringement lawsuits. The Attorneys General argue that laws against patent trolls are essential to protecting innovation. At least 32 states have laws that allow targets of bad-faith patent-infringement claims to bring claims against patent trolls. This case, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, could determine the validity of these laws.

“Patent trolls are parasites on innovations in the tech industry,” said Attorney General Josh Stein. “They thwart new ideas that lead to economic growth. I will do everything in my power to protect innovators in our state so that they can focus on creating, not legal wrangling.”

Attorney General Stein is joined by Attorneys General from Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia.

Attorney General Stein also urged the Court to side with creators in a North Carolina case, Napco v. Landmark, which sought to protect the NC Abusive Patents Act, North Carolina’s 2014 anti-patent troll law. The Court agreed and upheld the law in 2021.

A copy of the brief is available here.

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