Posts Tagged: "Congress"

The Year Ahead: Where Do We Stand on the USPTO’s ANPRM and the PREVAIL Act?

As we enter 2024, major policy initiatives are pending at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and in Congress aimed at overhauling certain aspects of Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) practice. These initiatives—the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) and PREVAIL Act, respectively, are at a critical point, with elections less than a year away. This article discusses the current state of both.

Tillis Demands Answers from Biden on March-In Proposal

Senator Thom Tillis sent a letter today to President Joe Biden asking him to answer three broad questions related to his proposal earlier this month that would allow government agencies considerable discretion in deciding whether and when to “march in” on patents. As we previously reported, the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) and the Department of Commerce published a Federal Register Notice on December 8 seeking comments on a proposed framework for exercising march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act that would significantly broaden the criteria for compulsory licensing of patented technology developed with federal funding, particularly with respect to drug pricing.

The Bills to Watch: IP Legislation of 2023 That Will Affect Your 2024

Throughout 2023, a number of legislative initiatives impacting intellectual property rights were introduced in the United States Congress or signed into law by the President. In some instances, these efforts are meant to try and re-balance the various, sometimes competing, interests of the public and the innovators. In other instances, the legislation is aimed at weaponizing the intellectual property right procurement process to reward some and punish others. Various pieces of legislation as well as Executive Directives directed at artificial intelligence also have been introduced at different levels. This piece, however, leaves those AI issues for others to address. Below is a summary of some of the key legislative efforts in 2023 touching on U.S. IP rights.

Greater DOJ Action Needed to Stop Corporate IP Theft

In a laudable effort to curtail rampant corporate IP theft, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators has called on a hesitant Department of Justice (DOJ) to step up its enforcement. As reported in Forbes, Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) recently issued a letter to the DOJ identifying the core gap in its prosecution habits. Their primary complaint was “the DOJ’s focus on individual, as opposed to corporate, offenders.” This is an oversight that must be corrected. 

Why You Should Care About a Federal Right of Publicity

If you’re reading IPWatchdog, you probably have some familiarity with intellectual property rights, such as patents, copyrights and trademarks. However, one distinct type of intellectual property is often left out and misunderstood. It’s called the right of publicity. While publicity rights are often confused with other types of intellectual property or privacy rights, or mistakenly associated only with famous individuals, they are incredibly important, far-reaching, and deserve much more attention.