The Houston Chronicle published an Op-Ed written by ATR’s Executive Director of Digital Liberty, Katie McAuliffe, titled: “Patent trolls threaten business community”
“Of the 9,940 patent litigation cases filed in 2011, about 56 percent were filed by non-practicing companies, a k a trolls. In 2011, average total cost per case for patent litigation from discovery to trial was about $2.8 million. Because of the enormous costs associated with taking a case to court, roughly 90 percent of the cases filed are settled rather than going to trial.
[Senator] Cornyn's [Patent Abuse Reduction] PAR Act has three major features intended to deter.”
Senator Dick Durbin’s office released a statement about the Senator’s Smarter Sentencing Act of which Grover Norquist is a signatory:
“With federal prison populations skyrocketing and nearly half of the nation’s federal inmates serving sentences for drug offenses, Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL), Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) have introduced the Smarter Sentencing Act, to modernize our drug sentencing polices by giving federal judges more discretion in sentencing those convicted of non-violent offenses. Making these incremental and targeted changes could save taxpayers billions in the first years of enactment.”
McKay Coppins from BuzzFeed included a statement from Grover Norquist about the need for the GOP to start focusing on the protection of Religious Liberty:
“Establishment Republicans see religious liberty as a way to speak to the issues that are important to their traditional grassroots base without coming off as prudish and Puritanical to the rest of the country. It’s also a message that aligns with the ascendant libertarian wing of the party — a sort of anti-regulatory Christian conservatism that Rand Paul and his acolytes can get behind.
Conservative activist Grover Norquist said the decision to start focusing on religious liberty represents ‘an incredible return to the successful 1980 model that was lost.’”
The Washington Times reporter, Jennifer Harper, picked up an item from ATR on the number of games that football players must play in order to pay their state taxes: “Gridiron Tackled by Taxes”
“With training camp for each of the NFL’s franchises underway, rookies and veterans have signed sumptuous contracts with new or current teams around the league. But a little surprise awaits them, says Americans for Tax Reform, a nonpartisan interest group opposed to hefty tax increases.
‘While many first-year players join their new team expecting to make millions in their professional debuts, the truth of the matter is the part of their paycheck for their first game will go directly to the state tax collectors,’ spokesman John Kartch says.”