History will remember U.S. Sen. Reed Smoot and U.S. Rep. Willis Hawley for a 1930 law that raised tariffs and is blamed for helping to accelerate the Great Depression. The tariffs are long gone, but Section 337 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act has emerged as a giant hammer for technology companies in the patent wars over mobile devices.
It’s also been a bonanza for Washington-based Adduci, Mastriani & Schaumberg, a firm long established in what has become the preferred forum for these battles: the once sleepy International Trade Commission (ITC).
