Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote as early as Wednesday (June 22) on a broad patent reform bill. The vote could be the last big step in a six-year effort to enact patent reform, an area not addressed by Congress since before the invention of the microprocessor.
Supporters have been lining up behind H.R. 1249, suggesting it may pass by a broad margin. A similar bill passed the Senate in a 95-to-5 vote in March.
The so-called America Invents Act calls for shifting to a first-to-file system to harmonize with most other patent offices around the world. It creates new procedures at the patent office to challenge patents after they are granted in an effort to reduce rising patent litigation in court.
The bill also lets the patent office, which has a backlog of as many as 800,000 patent applications, set its own fees and keep all the fees it generates. Currently Congress sets fees, and the patent office lives on a set annual budget with any excess fees turned over to a general federal fund.
The bill includes a number of other smaller but still significant measures. For instance, it would also expand rights of companies who are the first to commercially use an invention, even after someone else wins a patent on that invention.
Last minute changes are still a possibility. As many as 33 amendments will be debated on the House floor, taking aim at many of the major provisions of the draft bill—some even calling its move to first-to-file unconstitutional.
However, the House and Senate bills will have to be reconciled into a single bill, so major changes from what the Senate passed are unlikely. President Obama has signaled he will sign the final bill as long as it does not stray too far from existing drafts.
"The purpose of this bill is to get better patents approved more quickly," said Lamar Smith (R., Texas), a sponsor of the bill, noting it takes an average of three years to get patents approved today.
"I have been here for 19 years, and I know of no bill more seismic for American invention and manufacturing," said Don Manzullo (R., Illinois).
Manzullo is sponsoring an amendment to prevent the patent office from setting its own fees. Congress should control fees so they do not soar, noting his brother is a restaurant owner who had to pay $500 to retain a trademark on a dish he serves.
"These are the little people," he said.
Indeed, much of the debate in and out of Congress on patent reform is whether provisions favor large corporation or small startups and individual entrepreneurs. Another line of debate has pitted big product companies against generally smaller patent licensing firms.
Provisions in the bill expanding user rights "will transform our patent system from one that values transparency to one that values secrecy," warned Tammy Baldwin (D., Wisconsin). She is sponsoring a bill to strike the expansion of prior user rights.
Jim Sensenbrenner (R., Wisconsin) called for striking the first-to-file provision, calling it unconstitutional. He cited Supreme Court decisions from 1813 to 2011 suggesting the patent system was designed to protect inventors.
In a procedural hearing Tuesday, one Congressman called the bill "extraordinarily controversial." Another said it was "one of the most complex issues we can handle."
So far, public support for the bill has come from a variety of sources including IBM, the 21st Century Coalition on Patent Reform and a coalition of 18 Democrats.
By: DocMemory
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