The Obama administration is making another push to combat litigious “patent trolls,” announcing a series of executive actions on Thursday aimed at reducing the number of bad patents granted by the government. The actions direct the Patent and Trademark Office to work with the private sector on making it easier to figure out if a patent application is truly novel. 

The White House made a public pledge last June to thwart patent trolls, and now the Executive Branch is renewing that promise with new executive actions as well as a follow-up on previous ones. While also asserting that it is urging Congress to pass legislation designed to curtail patent-related lawsuits, the White House also provided an update on some of the previous executive actions on this front. For example, the USPTO has appointed three new scholars to do a deeper study on the existing patent system for the purpose of determining where to reduce “unnecessary litigation and improve the quality of issued patents.”