THE AMERICAN: Sorting Out the High-Tech Patent Mess.

ITC administrative law judges, who have no specialized knowledge of patent law, nevertheless are called upon to judge infringement cases. In recent years, this venue has become widely popular with the business community — according to ITC analysis, the number of Section 337 cases increased by more than 500 percent from 2001-2011.

The reasons are twofold: the agency process is much quicker than court proceedings, including appeals; and the ITC can exercise only one (draconian) remedy in these cases: import bans on products deemed to have infringed an existing patent.