Posts Tagged: "Senate Judiciary Committee"

First Senate Hearing on 101 Underscores That ‘There’s More Work to Be Done’

The first of three scheduled hearings in which the Senate IP Subcommittee will hear testimony from a total of 45 witnesses on the subject of patent eligibility law raised many questions. While some read the proposed draft bill released by Congress last month as clearly overturning AMP v. Myriad, for example, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), Ranking Member of the Senate IP Subcommittee, said today that was not his intention. In his opening statement, Coons pushed back against an article published on Monday by The Washington Post, which indicated that the proposed draft bill to revise Section 101 would enable the patenting of genes. Coons called the article “significantly misleading” and noted that “our proposal would not change the law to allow a company to patent a gene as it exists in the human body. I believe I speak for the Chairman and myself when I say we do not intend to overrule that holding of the 2013 Myriad decision.” The concerns leading to the Washington Post article arose in recent days, after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a statement and held a phone briefing for Congressional staffers claiming that the proposed draft bill would enable the patenting of genes. Sherry Knowles, Principal of Knowles Intellectual Property Strategies and one of the witnesses at today’s hearing, penned a rebuttal of the ACLU’s position that IPWatchdog published on Monday. Knowles spoke in the second panel of today’s hearing and said she hopes the proposed bill would in fact overturn the Myriad decision because “there’s been a dead stop in research in the United States on isolated natural products. The highest public interest is life itself and that has to be the goal of this statute.”

This Week on Capitol Hill: World IP Day, Cybersecurity Hearings and Promoting Blockchain-Based Innovation

This week on Capitol Hill, both the House of Representatives and Senate are back in full action after the conclusion of two weeks of work periods. Tuesday is an especially busy day for technology and innovation hearings at both houses of Congress. Hearings at the House that day will focus on stopping robocalls, carbon reduction technologies and 2020 fiscal year funding for a couple of government research and development agencies. Tuesday hearings in the Senate will look at American leadership in nuclear energy, cybersecurity concerns related to the Internet of Things and the Senate IP Subcommittee observes World Intellectual Property Day, with a look at IP in sports. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation will also host an event on Capitol Hill this week to look at the prospects of blockchain technology adoption in various industries.

‘Bad Patents’ Are Just Another Big Tech False Narrative

Over the last 15 years, Congress, the courts and the USPTO have gutted the patent system. Fortunately, USPTO Director Andrei Iancu has been taking important steps to reverse some of the damage, with revised 101 guidance and changes in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). But the most important thing Iancu is doing is silencing the big tech “patent troll” narrative. False political narratives condense complicated issues into an object and then villainize the object. Once a villain is created, its evil can be expanded to encompass anything you don’t like. When you have pushed enough bad stuff into the moniker, you can simply state its evil name, add a few campaign contributions, and Congress will magically pass laws in your favor to kill the villain. The “patent troll” narrative has been valuable to big tech. It bought the laws they needed to perpetuate their monopolies. With Iancu silencing the “patent troll” narrative, big tech created a new one: “bad patents”.

In Memory: Farewell to Senator Birch Bayh

On Wednesday, March 14, we lost Senator Birch Bayh.  We knew for several months that this day wasn’t far off, as his health rapidly declined.  I wanted to let him know one more time how grateful I am for having had the privilege of working for him. Yesterday, I spoke with a reporter from the Indianapolis Star who wanted to know what it was like working for Sen. Bayh.  I said that he was the same person in private that you saw in public.  He came to Congress to get things done and had no problem working across party lines. It was a rare Senator who didn’t like Birch Bayh.

Other Barks & Bites for Friday, March 1

This week in Other Barks and Bites: the Senate Judiciary Committee plans to go after drug patents to promote access to generic medications; Apple faces another patent suit in the Eastern District of Texas in the midst of attempts to remove its business presence from the district; China enacts a code of conduct for patent agents; Samsung and Huawei enter into an agreement to terminate their multi-year legal battle in the Android sector; the makers of Fortnite face yet another copyright suit over dance moves; Warner Bros. strikes down a Kickstarter campaign intending to distribute edited versions of The Departed; and a Delaware jury upholds cholesterol treatment patents owned by Amgen.