A letter was sent to Majority Leader Harry Reid today (here) by a bipartisan group of senators asking him to bring patent reform legislation to the Senate floor for a vote “as soon as possible.” The argument behind the push was that strengthening our patent system and
ass=”alignleft size-full wp-image-3515″ title=”MIB cover” src=”https://www.patentspostgrant.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/MIB-cover.bmp” alt=”MIB cover” />The recently published Volume 2, Issue 2 of the journal Medical Innovation & Business focused entirely on patent reform’s potential impact on medical innovation. Special guest editors Renee Kaswan, David Boundy, and Ron Katznelson express particular concern that patent reform will weaken the investment incentive for innovations with high development costs and low production costs, notably including medical innovations. Numerous articles in this issue discuss the effects that proposed post-grant review might have on the value of smaller companies’ patents and therefore on the incentives to invest in such companies. The articles in this patent reform issue of Medical Innovation & Business that are relevant to post-grant procedures for assessing validity fall roughly into three categories based on three different perspectives: venture capitalists’ perspective, the perspective of attorneys in private practice, and judicial perspective. Across these categories, post-grant discussions repeatedly highlight several sources of uncertainty that may apply to small companies relying on their intellectual property investments. We provide the following review of the articles in this issue that pertain to post-grant review.
Continue Reading Potential Impact of Patent Reform on Medical Innovation
If you are one of the foolish people out there under the impression that the U.S. banking and real estate crash has led to the current economic state, heightened unemployment, etc, you would be wrong. Turns out, the 18 month publication of patent applications, and 35 USC § 102(e) have ruined the U.S economy….who knew?
On July 29, 2010 H.R. 5980 was introduced by Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) as the “Bring Jobs Back to America: Strategic Manufacturing & Job Repatriation Act.” How can anyone vote against that noble cause!?
Unfortunately, once past the flowery title, the substance of the bill, at least with respect to the proposed patent law changes is simply a collection of oddball provisions that would neither achieve any meaningful reform nor job repatriation.
Continue Reading HR 5980 Distracts From Patent Reform Efforts
With Congress on summer hiatus, and significant election uncertainty coming in the Fall, Patent Reform efforts are seemingly on hold (again). Still, last week, the USPTO was able to secure an additional $139 million in funding. H.R. 5874 permits the USPTO to retain $139 million in fees collected from patent applications and patent maintenance fees
During an interview with ABC news this past Sunday, “This Week” Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod fielded questions on the administration’s plan for economic growth. With the deficit growing, and the Obama White House being assailed for over spending, Mr. Axelrod mentioned several initiatives that will not require further spending, but are expected to
With patent reform seemingly on the back burner yet again, Senator Leahy stands on the In re Bilski soap box to rally supporters Monday, noting:
In Bilski v. Kappos, the Court unanimously affirmed the judgment of the Federal Circuit that the application for a patent on a business method should be rejected. The Court’s opinion
With Memorial Day now behind us, so much for the vote on S.515 before the holiday. Since Congressman Conyers floated the separate USPTO funding bill there does not appear to be much movement on the substantive issues of S.515.
Still, there will be a discussion of the policies at play in these legislative proposals next week (6/15) in DC (Georgetown). The Program is described as:
Hear the perspectives of leading experts on the need for reform and the current legislative landscape, the pros and cons of bills under consideration, and the future implications for research, licensing, and litigation:
This is the second post addressing transition provisions outlined in the Manager’s Amendment to S. 515. The first post addressed the transition provisions for interferences. This post comments on the transition provisions for inter partes review.
Inter Partes Reexamination to Post Grant/Inter Partes Review – the transition provisions for switching over from the current inter partes reexamination proceedings handled by the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) to post grant/inter partes reviews handled by the new Patent Trials and Appeals Board (PTAB) contemplates a graduated ramp up with limits on the number of reviews that can be declared under regulations to be promulgated by the Director. Sections 5(c)(2)(C) and 5(f)(2) of the Manager’s Amendment to S. 515 permit the Director to impose “a limit on the number of [reviews] that may be instituted during each of the first 4 years” following the cutover over date to FTFG. While such a graduated transition would certainly be beneficial for the Office and the PTAB to learn how to handle these new review proceedings, the glaring question left open by these transition provisions is what happens to those requests for review that are above the cutoff
Continue Reading USPTO Patent Reform Implementation, Hurry Up & Wait?
As explained last week, a vocal contingent of House members appear unsatisfied with the recent momentum of the manager’s amendment to S.515. So, in the truest tradition of U.S. politics, they have set out to undermine the entire process by introducing a new draft measure. The draft is much narrower and provides only for