Gaming Industry Colleague:

AGA continues its ongoing efforts to call for Congress to pass meaningful patent reform legislation to curb abuses asserted by patent trolls. Patent trolls are a hindrance to American businesses, including the gaming industry, that make our nation’s economy thrive. We encourage you to join us in this effort to push for meaningful reform — using easy-to-use communications resources outlined below.

AGA Urges Senate to Fight Frivolous, Costly Litigation

AGA has been actively engaging policymakers and stakeholders to encourage the passage of patent reform. Recent AGA activities to aid this effort include:

• AGA President and CEO Geoff Freeman sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging movement on patent reform legislation; and
• AGA Vice President of Government Relations Whit Askew participated in a briefing on Capitol Hill with a broad coalition of business interests to discuss pending patent reform legislation before Senate staff, media and other stakeholders.

Patent trolls directly cost American businesses billions of dollars annually. Enactment of meaningful patent reform will help ensure gaming companies continue to lead as an innovative economic engine by removing unnecessary and frivolous patent litigation.

Lend Your Voice

AGA is optimistic about the chances of passage. Patent reform is among the few legislative efforts making progress on a bipartisan basis in the 113th Congress, meanwhile casino operators and gaming manufacturers alike continue to fall victim to frivolous, unnecessary and costly patent litigation and troll demands. Congressional action is critical now to ensure that such unfounded demands and abusive litigation is curbed as a hinderance to our industry’s positive promotion of economic development, job creation and innovation.

Please add to our efforts to help push for the passage of this important legislation.

• Call your Senator and ask to pass legislation now. Finding your Senator is easy: visit Senate.gov, click on your state, and email or call to make your request. To help craft messaging, use AGA’s suggested talking points.
• We also encourage you to take the message to social media. Leverage Twitter and its more than 251+ million active users to publicly share your call the Senate Judiciary Chairman Leahy (D-VT), Ranking Member Grassley (R-IA) and Senate leadership to keep patent reform a priority. We too have crafted this message for you: Simply click to share the message with the Senate leadership as well as your followers.

AGA will continue to aggressively push for Congress to pass patent reform, and seek ways to easily harness the collective power of the industry’s voice. With a unified voice, the gaming community carries considerable force — please lend your voice to this effort. We will keep you informed on future progress.

Sincerely,

Geoff Freeman
President and CEO
American Gaming Association