WASHINGTON — Taking aim at “patent trolls” that use the threat of lawsuits to obtain licensing fees, President Barack Obama issued executive orders to crack down on abuses and called on Congress to take tougher steps to protect innovative high-tech businesses.

The moves have been pushed by the high-tech industry, which has complained for years about companies that acquire rights to patents for some of the numerous components in computer software and electronics.

Those companies, which don’t manufacture products, use their sometimes questionable patents as leverage to obtain licensing fees. The companies say they are simply exercising their rights as patent holders.

Obama has criticized such firms. Asked about them in February, Obama said that “they essentially leverage and hijack someone else’s idea and see if they can extort some money out of them.”

The White House said lawsuits by so-called patent assertion entities have more than doubled in the past two years. A report by White House technology and economic officials released Tuesday cited estimates that such firms threatened more than 100,000 companies with patent infringement suits in 2012.

Among the executive actions Obama announced was a new rule to be enacted by the Patent and Trademark Office requiring patent holders to reveal their ties to other companies.

Obama also ordered the Patent and Trademark Office to improve its examination process to weed out patents with overly broad claims and to educate consumers, retailers and other technology users on how to handle lawsuit threats.