Senate Inches Closer to Considering Patent Bill
On August 2, 2011, Harry Reid, along with several other senators, moved to bring to a close in the Senate any debate on the motion to proceed to calendar H.R. 1249, the previously passed "Leahy-Smith America Invents Act" (originally the Patent Reform Act when its companion bill started out in the Senate). According to the Congressional Record, on September 6, 2011, the Senate will proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 87, H.R. 1249.
A cloture motion cannot be voted until two days after it is proposed, and must be by way of a petition signed by 16 senators. In the Reid motion, the following Democratic senators signed the motion: Harry Reid (D-NV), Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT), Thomas R. Carper (D-DE), Joseph I. Lieberman (I-CT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), John F. Kerry (D-MA), Mark Udall (D-CO), Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Max Baucus (D-MT), Mark Begich (D-AK), Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA).
Until H.R. 1249 is calendared, floor debate cannot occur on the merits of the patent reform bill previously passed by the House on June 23, 2011, by a vote of 304 Ayes, 117 Nays. Patent reform legislation had previously received overwhelming support in the Senate, when Senators passed their own patent reform bill, S. 23, on March 8, 2011. But that was before the acrimony surrounding the debt ceiling debate engulfed Congress the last few weeks.
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The problems with the patent system that President Obama has recently mentioned stem basically from problems of inefficiency at the USPTO -- due in large part to lack of funds. I still fail to see how most provisions of the current so-called patent reform bill address the patent office's organizational challenges (especially with the potential for fee diversion still being part of the picture).
http://www.aminn.org/patent-reform-act-2011-s23