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

     Peter Zura suggested in his article "R.I.P. Patent Reform" (271 Patent Blog) that the Senate will not take action on the Patent Reform Act of 2007, S. 1145, this year. His prediction is based on comments by Matthew Sandgren, counsel to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), that were presented at a speech in Washington, D.C. in early November. Peter noted that the biggest sticking points preventing a full Senate vote today are the second window of post-grant review and apportionment of damages provisions. The FDANews Drug Daily Bulletin for Nov. 19, posted a similar summary of Sandgren's comments. The Intellectual Property Owners Association reportedly expects the Senate will consider patent reform in February 2008. 

     The BNA Daily Report for Executives, Nov. 7 and 16, 2007 (subscription required), and other sources suggest that the following stakeholders have been or are still opposed to portions of the Patent Reform Act, and many may continue to yield as much influence as possible to win over Senators: the venture capital industry (at least 30 members who sent Senators a letter earlier in November); Innovation Alliance; American Bar Association's Intellectual Property Law Section; AFL-CIO; Paul R. Michel, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; The Patent Officials Professional Association (the union representing patent examiners); Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, whose members include the American Intellectual Property Law Association, as well as companies from the manufacturing, information technology, consumer products, energy, financial services, medical products, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries.

     Of course, there are many in favor of the current bill, and would love to see an up vote sooner rather than later. Certain technology companies strongly back patent reform legislation because of provisions they see as leveling the playing field in lawsuits brought by non-practicing entities and so-called "patent trolls."

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     The House of Representatives today voted to pass H.R.1908, which is entitled the "Patent Reform Act of 2007."  The final vote, covered live by C-SPAN this afternoon, was 220 in favor of passage, 175 against. The House Report 110-319 can be found here, and includes several Amendments not included in the introduced version of the bill.

Comments:

• Attention now turns to the Senate to see if patent reform will finally see passage in Congress after three years of debate
  
  
• To illustrate how divisive patent reform has become, one Representative called H.R.1908 the "Steal America's Inventions Act" during the debate

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     In an earlier post this week--Seagate vs. Patent Reform Act of 2007--I included a link to R. David Donoghue's Chicago IP Litigation Blog and his post "Is the Patent Reform Act Stalled?"  David may have been onto something, as only a day later blogger Dennis Crouch reported in his post "Congressional Patent Reform is Dead; Long Live Adminstrative Patent Reform" that Congressional Republicans have asked Speaker Pelosi to put the brakes on patent reform legislation. In their letter to Pelosi (D-CA) dated August 30, 2007, available here, Representatives Boenner (R-OH) and Blunt (R-MO) asked for the reprieve to allow additional consensus building "so that all U.S. companies benefit from reforming the patent system rather than advantaging one business model over another." 

Comments:

• The introduced Senate and House versions of patent reform legislation are: S.1145 and H.R.1908, respectively
  


• A search of the Internet revealed Patent Reform Acts of 2005, 2006, and 2007; perhaps we should start looking forward to the 2008 or 2009 versions
  


• The Pelosi letter was copied to Representatives Conyers (D-MI), L. Smith (R-TX), Berman (D-CA), and Coble (R-NC), all members of the House Judiciary Committee (Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property)

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