The U.S. Congress should limit the ability of patent holders that don’t make products to file infringement complaints at the U.S. International Trade Commission because of a huge increase in cases there, representatives of some companies told lawmakers Tuesday.

Patent assertion entities (PAEs), companies that own patents but don’t make products, are using the patent complaint process at the USITC to “coerce settlements” from other companies, said Russell Binns Jr., associate general counsel at networking vendor Avaya. In many cases, PAEs — often called patent trolls — don’t want the USITC to use its power to bar the importation of infringing products, but instead, they want to use the USITC to drive settlements in corresponding court cases, he said.

Patent complaints are costing U.S. companies billions of dollars, Binns told the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee‘s intellectual property subcommittee.

“PAEs have discovered that the much lower bar for obtaining exclusion orders at the ITC gives them tremendous leverage to demand outrageous licensing fees — even as they pursue cases in federal court,” he said. “This often leads to companies being left with little choice but to give in to PAE demands, resulting in truly wasted capital, higher costs for consumers, and barriers to American innovation.”

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