Maryland's Representatives Vote For America Invents Act
When the U.S. House of Representatives voted for passage of H.R. 1249, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, on June 23, 2011, 304 voted in favor of passage ("aye"), while 117 said no. Below is a list of Maryland's Representatives in Congress and how they voted for the bill:
- Andy Harris [R, Dist. 1]: Aye
- C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger [D, Dist. 2] : Aye
- John Sarbanes [D, Dist. 3]: Aye
- Donna Edwards [D, Dist. 4]: No
- Steny Hoyer [D, Dist. 5]: Aye
- Roscoe Bartlett [R, Dist. 6]: No
- Elijah Cummings [D, Dist. 7]: Aye
- Christopher Van Hollen [D, Dist. 8]: Aye
On his website, Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, who introduced H.R. 1249, indicated that the bill had been held up while the issue of the diversion of fees generated by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) was resolved. He stated that since 1992, nearly $1 billion had been diverted from the PTO by Congress and used for other purposes, this while the average wait time for a patent to issue from the PTO had increased to three years from the filing date of a patent application. The Manager’s Amendment to H.R. 1249 ends fee diversion by creating a fund for fees collected by the PTO. The money in the fund will be reserved for and used by the PTO. According to Smith, this will allow for congressional oversight, while making sure that fees collected by the PTO can no longer be diverted. The intent, of course, is that more patent examiners can be hired, and more modern systems can be aquired to help reduce the three-year pendency of patent applications in the PTO.
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