PREVAIL Act

Key Points

• This bill aims to protect American inventors by making it harder for companies to challenge existing patents. It requires people who want to cancel a patent to prove it is invalid using 'clear and convincing evidence,' which is a higher standard than the one currently used by the government's patent review board.
• The policy prevents 'double-dipping' by requiring challengers to choose one place to fight a patent. If a company chooses to challenge a patent through the Patent Office, they generally cannot use the same arguments to fight that patent in a regular court at the same time.
• It changes who is allowed to challenge a patent. Under these rules, a person or company can only try to cancel a patent if they have actually been sued for using it, have been threatened with a lawsuit, or can prove they are honestly planning to use the technology in a way that might lead to a legal dispute.
• The bill ensures that all fees paid by inventors to the Patent and Trademark Office stay within that agency. Currently, some of that money can be taken by the general government for other uses; this change creates a permanent fund to make sure the money is used only to process applications and run patent programs.
• Small businesses and universities would get extra help, including expanded access to lower 'micro-entity' fees for college researchers. The Patent Office would also be required to provide its professional search tools and training materials online for free so that everyday people can research inventions without paying high costs.