Virginia's New Law: "BAD FAITH ASSERTIONS OF PATENT INFRINGEMENT"

Nice.

> B. The following shall constitute indicia that a person's assertion of patent infringement was made in bad faith:

>1. The demand letter does not contain:

>a. The number of the patent that is asserted, alleged, or claimed to have been infringed; or

Wouldn't this outlaw Microsoft's Android manufacturer shakedown strategy? If I recall, Microsoft's settlement demand letters never actually specify which patents are infringed, and they only provide this information if you settle with them and agree not to disclose it (to prevent Google from routing around the allegedly infringed IP).

IANAL so maybe I'm reading this wrong - please correct me if so - but is the penalty really just "The circuit court also may award to the Commonwealth a civil penalty of not more than $2,500 for each violation, reasonable expenses incurred in investigating and preparing the case, and attorneys’ fees."? My understanding is that the court will not allow outrageous attorney's fees to be passed on (i.e. defendant can claim $100k in fees but court will only make plaintiff liable for $5k if they feel that's 'reasonable'). So this is probably going to be "less than $10,000 per bad faith lawsuit that the plaintiff has to pay" if I'm reading this correctly.

Sure, that's a lot of money... but would it stop you from suing for $10,000,000? Of course not. Would it stop you from suing for $50,000 though? Probably. But how many patent lawsuits are for such a low amount? I have no idea.

What about the free pass for institutions of higher learning? The Eolas invention was invented by a Univeristy of California team http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolas

This is a good move in the right direction.