Next Tuesday the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing entitled Protecting Small Businesses and Promoting Innovation by Limiting Patent Troll Abuse. The 10 AM hearing will be webcast. A witness list is not yet available. The hearing will focus issues for possible mark up so
Yesterday afternoon, the Innovation Act (H.R. 3309) passed through the House with ease by a vote of 325-91. The bill was quickly debated (3 hours) and only slightly amended. The one noteworthy change was the removal of the provision designed to repeal 35 U.S.C. § 145.
Now that the Goodlatte Bill, also knows as the Innovation Act (H.R. 3309), has been reported out of the Judiciary Committee there will be a second round of amendment opportunities. The new amendments will be collected from house lawmakers on Monday December 2nd, and
Wasting no time…the Senate has quickly introduced a companion bill to H.R. 3309. The senate bill (here), sponsored by Senator Leahy of Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) fame, largely tracks the post grant related provisions of the existing house legislation —
Last week, the proposed patent reform legislation (HR 3309) was seemingly stalled for the remainder of 2013. This road block was primarily erected by the Business Software Alliance, and other pro software patent lobbyist that were taking issue with certain proposed changes to Section 18 of the America
With two previous working drafts circulated in the House of Representatives, the proposals of the Goodlatte Bill were thought to be thoroughly “baked in” from a legislative perspective. However recent commentary from the judiciary on the proposed district court pleading/procedural changes, taken together with the very
Although the Innovation Act (H.R.. 3309) was only introduced last week, as expected, Congress is wasting no time pushing the “patent reform” issue forward. Today at 10AM the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the content of the Bill entitled: Improving the Patent System to Promote American Innovation and Competitiveness. The hearing will alert the committee of specific concerns prior to mark-up. One notable topic is the Bill’s proposed shift from the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) at the USPTO’s Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB) to a district court style claim construction. The initial draft of the Goodlatte Bill referenced the entirety of 35 U.S.C. § 282, and along with it, a presumption that patent claims are valid (§ 282 (a)). This would have been an absolute boon to patent trolls. Fortunately, and as I predicted, the claim construction proposal no longer requires the application of the presumption of validity.
In the second draft, and now H.R. 3309, the general reference to § 282 has been changed to a contextual reference to § 282(b). In essence, the proposal would change little at the USPTO (plain and ordinary meaning is a component of BRI) other than perhaps an increased emphasis on prosecution history consistent with Philipps v. AWH. That said, the proposal still lacks consistency and leaves a possible opening for patent troll mischief.
Continue Reading Congress Debates USPTO Use of District Court Claim Construction Practices
Now that Congress has kicked the budgetary can down the road for another 3 months they may actually squeeze in some lawmaking before the end of 2013. Given the public image problems created by the shutdown of the last few weeks, lawmakers will be eager to find an issue to address via legislation; especially an issue with bipartisan support that will not be too hotly debated— You see where this is going.
Given the the entrenched positions on both sides of the immigration debate (a stated priority of the White House), patent reform remains the lowest hanging fruit. For this reason it seems likely that the next act of political theater will be to sell patent reform as key to America’s competitive future. As a reminder, here are the issues to shape the debate in the week’s ahead:
Continue Reading End of Budget Deadlock to Spark Patent Reform Efforts?
As expected, the second Goodlatte discussion draft has been circulated. (here) The second draft appears to include additional technical fixs and refinements, including the necessary CBM fix I mentioned being involved with yesterday. The draft also includes many of the concepts introduced in
Seems Congress is currently winning the never ending fee diversion battle with the USPTO. As a result, efforts to expand USPTO satellite office to Dallas, Denver and Silicon Valley have been significantly slowed. While permanenet office locations in Dallas and Denver have been identified, the search for a permanent