Maryland Intellectual Property Law Blog : Maryland Intellectual Property Lawyer & Attorney : Brian Wm. Higgins : Serving Baltimore, Columbia, Frederick

Calling for Copyright Reform

• "Given where we are on the patent reform debate, is it time to move patent reform off the table and work on copyright reform?" That is the question posed by Kristie Prinz at the Silicon Valley IP Licensing Law Blog.

No More Committee on Intellectual Property

• "House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) will abolish the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property in the new Congress and instead keep intellectual property issues at the full committee level, a Judiciary aide told Congress Daily today." (source: Congressional Daily)

District Court Clarifies How PTO Should Compute Patent Terms

• Wyeth v. Dudas, No. 07-1492 (D.D.C. 2008): on September 30, 2008, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a decision concerning 35 U.S.C. § 154, the procedure the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) uses to calculates a patent's term.  Sec. 154 states that a patent grant shall be for a term beginning on the date on which the patent issues and ending 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, if the application contains certain specific references to an earlier filed application or applications, from the date on which the earliest such application was filed. The 20-year term may be adjusted by the PTO to account for certain delays during prosecution. The Wyeth decision means that the PTO must alter its methods for adjusting patent terms, especially where prosecution lasts longer than three years as measured from the filing date. For a detailed analysis of Wyeth, see Down a Rabbit Hole: Court Slaps Down Patent Office’s ‘Explanation’ of PTA Rules (Patent Baristas).

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     Seven weeks after Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) introduced S.3600, the Patent Reform Act of 2008, on September 25, 2008 (source: GovTracks), the reaction has been predictable, with stakeholders on the pro- and anti-reform sides making their views known. The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) said “improving and modernizing the patent system is clearly important to all sectors of the U.S. economy and we applaud Sen. Kyl and his staff for their leadership and inclusive approach to developing this legislation.” The Biotechnology Industry Organization’s (BIO) President and CEO Jim Greenwood immediately praised Kyl’s legislation, stating that "BIO appreciates the efforts of Senator Kyl and his staff to address the concerns of many stakeholders with the patent reform legislation currently pending in the Senate, and commends him for introducing the Patent Reform Act of 2008 (source: IPWatchdog).

     How will other stakeholders react? If past efforts are any indication, technology companies like Blackberry-maker RIM, which reportedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying Congress on legislation including patent reform in 2007, may take the same stance with the 2008 legislation, as will Microsoft, Google, and other tech companies, which formed the Coalition for Patent Fairness and fought big pharmaceutical companies to keep portions of the existing patent system in tact during the battle over the 2007 patent reform effort.

     Bloggers have weighed in on the new legislation, too. “There is practically zero chance that this bill will pass in the current [110^th Congress] session” (source: Peter Zura at the 271blog). Ex-AIPLA executive director Michael Kirk agrees. "Even if the Democrats get to 60 seats in the Senate, I would not count on the legislation being passed,” Kirk said in an exclusive interview with IAM (source: IAM Blog).

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