were rescued on wednesday. they have been taken to hospital with only minor injuries. you can always keep up-to-date with all the very latest news on our website. there it is on your screens. aljazerra.com. velshi "on target" tonight, trolling for dollars. threatening to put american ingenuity out of business. plus the cost of free draid, president obama's fast track treaty deal has come back from the dead. innovation is the fuel that powers america's engine and sets the united states apart from every other nation on earth. creating an atmosphere where

entrepreneurs scientists and inventers can turn great ideas into countries that create millions of jobs and billions in profits. but the same capitalist paradise that empowers the late steve jobs or facebook mark zuckerberg, bottom feeding parasites that will kill if unchecked. patent trolls and the toll they are taking on innovation. patent trolls are the companies that buy existing licenses and threaten to sue other companies. these claims of patent infringement is the reason why these lawsuits are soaring. price, waterhouse coopers said they grew, at a combined annual rate, before dropping last year, frivolous lawsuits,

forced many companies to spend millions they cannot afford and stifling innovation. that has sparked bills in congress to reform patent law and make life harder for patent trolls, we'll talk to people who say these bills go too far and protecting small business innovators. article 1, section a gives congress the power to have exclusive right to their exclusive writings and discoveries. probably never imagined someone who never invented anyone to use another person's patent to file against a small entrepreneur . disairts ha

ar i david ariosto has th david ariosto has the story. >> last thing i landed in las vegas, after the steak steaks ae scotch we made it in. >> a manager popped out and allowed peter and his friends to cut the line and enter the club pfn. >> it was the royal vip treatment. we walked right in and the next thing you know i'm the hero, right? i'm the hero because i saved about seven people 45 minutes each. >> it was after that experience that the idea for an app to save time was born. he called it jump rope and it justified fluctuating pricing to allow users to pay a fee to jump to the front of the line. whether it's at a night club a museum or anywhere people don't want to wait.

and it was a big hilt with investors. people raised about $250,000 from friends and co-workers and launched his app that year in november. >> there was a huge appetite for price moves as advertised and everybody was happy. >> reporter: but just one month later his good fortunate drastic li changed. >> i got a call from an attorney who said i was infrifnging on their patent. >> it acquired a patent officially known as 7313 519. using a computer network to reserve goods and services over the internet. >> overly broad pa patents, the first answer is it probably shouldn't have been granted in the first place. a judge called the lawsuit frivolous and ruled in peter's favor. >> what ended up happening is i

ran out of money. i couldn't fight the lawsuit anymore. we spent more money on litigation than the entire app. >> reporter: peter asked for mediation. it was then when smart options doubled down. >> they said, we're not concerned about the appeal. the day the decision comes back we're going to sue you with a different patent in our portfolio of patents. i didn't have the answer to that one. >> attorney for smart options didn't respond to multiple requests for comments. he had to sell equity in his company to an investor. and in the end jump rope as he envisioned it, won't survive. ultimately it left him broke. >> i don't know what you could do to a company than to completely decimate it to sue it for ip infringement. and you have almost no recourse. >> it cost on average between 2

and $5 million to defend the lawsuit, according to recent estimates and two-thirds of patent lawsuits are brought on by companies who don't invent or sell anything, instead they buy osh license patents and end up by threatening lawsuits and collecting settlements. in fact 90% of these cases end with a cash settlement and critics have a term for them. they call the plaintiffs in these cases patent trolls and they've cost investors half a trillion dollars since 1990. >> it's become widespread, affects thousands of companies annually. >> to have a patent a use has to be new and unobvious. issuing thousands of overly broad patents. one company recently used a patent it acquired, to threaten

coffee shops, who use wifi for their customers. or payouts for anybody who it together a podcast. the lawsuits are growing. the number of defendants in patent infringement cases have soared tenfold. >> i'd like. >> i sat down with the head of the u.s. pat enand trade park office. >> how much of a problem are these so-called patent trolls? there are barriers to entry, expensive litigation really prevents the kind of innovation that the u.s. patent office was meant to encourage. >> patent litigation in particular is one of the more expensive forms of litigation because of the technology. it is an abuse of the system. >> what can your office do about that? >> we are doing things that. i

launched an initiative last fall, it's the uspto's job to issue the very best patent it can issue. companies rely on patent rights, especially one funded with big competitors because they need that right to protect their development. >> it seems like so many of these patents are written in vague fuzzy terms for products they play have never dreamed of. >> i think what you're seeing is some people are asserting patents on products that perhaps were not intended. >> reporter: in the meantime innovators like peter braxton lose to patent innovation, which means ideas that are hatched in vegas, stay in vegas. >> david ariosto joins us.

is there anything that can be done retroactively, about all those patents that are issued so broad and general? >> you ask take your claim, if you get these letters from patent trolls, you can say, this doesn't make sense, this is one of the tenets or hallmarks of getting a influence patent, it can't be obvious. what's difficult about this is when you see an explosion of software, sloven, austin, texas, all these other places, you have code built on code, creating new ubers of the world. tens of thousands of infringements by all these companies taking place at once. the question is which among those patents are valid? that's a sifting process that u.s. patent and trademark office might not have the manpower for and has to contended with.

>> there are other parts of the economy that are affected as well? >> you're starting to see these in the consumer products and the german system is starting to see this in greater numbers. but patents are the real things people have to pay attention o. >> based on your reporting, if a small company gets a letter like this from a patent troll, what should they take? >> they help you work through process. it is an expensive proposition to go to court. now keep in mind these so-called patent trolls exist because small companies that are innovating developing new products, say they need production from the googles and the microsofts of the world. that is where this whole industry takes place so you have to protect the ability of small companies to have their patents. you don't want to get rid of that entirely but this system here, well, it's gotten out of

hand. david ariosto, appreciate it, thank you. patent controls can put a small inventer right out of business as we just saw. coming up, we talk to someone who insist patent controls actually help america.

>> at the heart of the patent debate is the idea of who should benefit from innovation. currently a bill called the innovation act is making its way through the u.s. house of representatives, to protect companies from frivolous lawsuits from so-called patent trolls. charles sawyer, joins us from washington and charles, how do these patent trolls help innovators and creators? >> well, let me start off with the fact that there are several option he to solve these

problems and in the ip space in the intellectual property space already. there are demand-letter issues that people consider a problem. that legislation was pulled out of hr 9 before it was ever introduced last congress and there's been several amendments that have been discuss ed throughoued tofully fund u.s. pd trademark office those have been handily voted down each time. people that are pushing hr 9 and the patent act really don't want to solve the problem. >> just so i understand, the people who are pushing hr 9 they want to shift the litigation cost to the losing side, they want more particularity to the letters that patent trolls stoned companies. what's wrong with that? >> no, they don't want more particularity in the letters. they pulled that legislation out of the bill before they ever introduced it. that the only people in the

senate, the senate has some demand-letter legislation in it. but the house language has he never been introduced with the main letter language in it. that's because when they were trying to work on it it was always overly broad. they were trying to devalue the cost of intellectual property. so you're right this is an issue that should be dealt with and the judiciary committee is stopped the energy and commerce committee from actually working on language called the troll act that would deal with these friferlt frivolous demand letters, these fraudulent demand letters. >> different issues with unintended consequences but you would acknowledge that something alleviately has to blegislativee right? >> i think fully funding u.s. pto should be done and there are these people sending fraudulent demand letters and that legislation should be passed today. because they don't just hurt the

mom and pop coffee shop. they also hurt the intellectual property space and the independent inventer. these are people that question and have segments like this on the value of gul intellectual property and what innovation is. >> the question i asks is disairt asked davidariosto last segmentt should be done with these patents that are so broad and general, that are sparking two-thirds of these lawsuits that are filed against people for patent infringement. >> i guess that brings up a couple of things. first the u.s. pto is having money taken away from the fees they charge in the first place. they don't have money to start a new initiative to do this. so if they are starting a new initiative they are taking away from funds that they are already short on and we don't want that. we want them to issue the best patents possible.

but whether we're talking about dealing with trolls and dealing with the litigation we need to look at the rates. we have been under a 2% litigation rate in the patent space since the founding of the 61. it did peak, it sparked to 4% back in the sewing machine wars. when you talk about it r it rav iterative iterative issues. >> defendants in patent control cases that has increased six times so clearly this is getting out of control, right? >> no. the sewing machine was the internet of its day. it was really hard to manufacture clothes before the sewing machine. >> nobody is saying it wasn't a problem back then. but nobody is saying it wasn't a problem back then. if i invented a button and somebody took my patent and said

you have to take me or else, that is a problem back then, as far as my understanding of history that has always been a problem that has stopped u.s. economic growth from realizing its full potential. >> the full potential there is a real question, we're the leading economy in the country and if you are talking about the countries that are adding in intellectual property, china didn't have an intellectual property office until 1948, when after the cultural revolution they decided they needed to recognize the property rights of inventers and now they're on the track to overtake our gdp. i would think it's the opposite. it might have potholes in the road but we shouldn't suggest ripping up the road just because of the potholes. the supporters of this bill talk about either $29 billion in litigation or $65 billion. i think the number at the start of this was a couple of hundred billion. all of those numbers have been proven made up they are not

reproducible and nonverifiable. but if we accept those as truth, our $2.3 trillion innovation economy, we need to protect the innovators, my daughters who i'm teaching to be the next innovators in the country. >> how does your system protect the innovators without any changes? >> the current system has been working where potholes in the road very well. now are these people sending fraudulent demand letters, yes. is the bill that's working its way through the house and passed last year with a lot of votes do anything about demand letters? no. the only bill that does something about demand letters, where there are bad actors, came out of energy and commerce committee. and didn't move to the house floor. >> on the house side. >> on the senate side we don't know where that bill will go on the end or if congress will

allow a conference. >> i think you and i disagree that the way to tackle the issue immediately is for congress to fight back against the letters that would be a good starting point if congress can move this forward. in any cause, charles sawyers, thank you. for coming on. >> you thank you very much. >> the transpacific partnership is back on course and it is an unlikely source that rescued this presidential priority.

>> we have an exclusive story tonight, and we go live... >> president obama's top trade priority which seemed dead only a week ago is now back on track. the senate today passed fast track authority. this has been a long bumpy road for the president. he has been campaigning hard for fast track so he can negotiate the transpacific partnership also known as tpp. the democrats have been opposed to any trade deals calling 40% of the american economy is vitamin uh vital to this business. this time it's his own party that's been trying to block him. one of the diswra democratic members of

congress, james onile-ere, this is over you've lost, do you agree? >> no, i don't agree. the president and republicans have had a victory here in approving fast track but the fact is congress is still going to have to approve or disapprove of the transpacific partnership agreement. so unfortunately we won't have any opportunities to amend it up or down, we just have to take it as it is. but we lost the first round here but this whole thing is not over with yet. >> but doesn't this suggest given you lost the first round, this causes be the loss on the first part of the tp act? >> it's about jobs. we've lost thousands of jobs in manufacturing and mining in northeastern minnesota. as a result of the importation of a lot of subsidized cheap

steel into the u.s. market at a time when there's actually an increase of demand of steel here in the united states. but most of it's been supplied by foreign steel most of which is found to be in violation of the previous trade agreements with the various nations. i think there's been almost like 350 determinations of illegal trade activities of which about 140 of them have been related to steel. but the fact is, is that these trade agreements have no really effective enforcement mechanisms. and that's part of the shortcoming in this agreement as well. and even into -- >> i was just going to say in addition to the impact on steel, and the impact on the actually content of the deal, you were one of the few members of congress who read every page, and you had to go into a secure basement to do so. i wonder if you can describe

your experience in trying to read this thing? >> well, it's very difficult to read and part of the shortcomings one of the reasons i and many others oppose fast track, this was negotiated over years in secret by the governments in 600 or so of the largest corporations of the world and you the general public and the press have no opportunity osee exactly what the agreements were. i was one of the people who went into the bowels of the capital to read through them and i'm not at liberty to discuss any of the details without violating the laws in this nation regarding classified material. but number one i don't think it should be classified fm the the press, the public should be able to see this and ultimately they will see the final agreement, they should see the whole process moving forward. the constitution of the united states is very clear on who's responsible for determining

trade relations among the nations and it's the congress. and there are very few areas in our government that are so deliberately and carefully spelled out in our constitution. and responsibility for trade is one of those. >> what about the argument that the obama administration and others have made that if the united states were not to sort of pass this trade deal with the 12 nations in asia that would essentially remove american leverage over a region that china is increasingly dominating and oh by the way this trade deal could generate some 80 billion dollars of economic consist for the united states. >> i think quite the contrary. i think this trade deal will help clearly asia and china and all the other countries in that region. but you know at the end of the day, what it's really all about is the fact that here in the united states of america, in a little over a generation, we doubled life expectancy here in this country and we did it with living wages and pensions and

benefits and health and safety and environmental protections. and after reading through that agreement it's pretty clear to me that there are no serious and slrn and/or benefits in playing a role and good paying jobs here in america. >> is that your main fear that the chinese and the vietnamese may pay their workers only a few cents or few bucks an hour that now united states is essentially competing against them? >> yes, we created this big economy that became a model for world and now we're saying go and compete with people who do a little in some cases none of these things and it ends up being a race to the bottom. and we don't want that. i'm a trader, chairman, chief cook and bottle wash he of a trade process. i very much believe in foreign

trade but i don't believe in a race to the bottom. i believe it has to be fair and i don't see anything in these trade agreements that make it fair. on the contrary. i do it clearly as a race to the bottom, and that is not in america's best interests. quite frankly i don't think it's in the world's best interest and that's why i oppose this agreement. >> and finally congressman, you oppose this agreement and you are going to be supporting somebody like bernie sanders in the 2016 presidential race because he is far more progressive than hillary clinton on these issues? >> bernie sanders certainly is for progressive than most of the democratic caucus here in the congress of the united states. so i'm not prepared to endorse a candidate for president yet at this point in time, we have a long way to go before we make these decisions. >> congressman onile-ere, thanks for being on the program, we

appreciate it. >> thank you, great program, great network, appreciate all you do. >> you're very welcome. "on target" tomorrow, the mysterious mass death of bees, scientists have been censored from the government. >> they were suffering everything from being restricted from publishing, forbidden, suffering demotions, suspensions, the whole gamut from up above. >> tomorrow 10:30 p.m. that is our show for today. i'm david schuster in for ali velshi. thanks for watching. >> my name is imran garda the show is called third rail, when you watch this show, you're gonna find us being un-afraid. the topics will fascinate you, intrigue you... >> they take this seriously... >> let me quote you... >> there's a double standard... >>...could be a hypocrite >> you're also gonna get a show that's really fair

bold... never predictable... >> the should be worried about heart disease, not terrorism... >> i wouldn't say that at all... >> you'll see a show that has an impact on the conventional wisdom, that goes where nobody else goes... >> my name is imran garda i am the host of third rail, and you can find it on al jazeera america heavy fighting in three syrian citiess different rebel groups launch major attacks. ♪ ♪ hello is there from al jazerra's headquarters in doha. i am laura kyle. also ahead. >> we are one step from famine. >> the unites nations warns that 10s of million of people in yemen are at risk of starvation. negotiations breakdown in