Posts Tagged: "Senator Patrick Leahy"

Reflections on Unintended Consequences of Proposed Patent Law Amendments

Senators Leahy and Tillis have proposed another patent law amendment for the Endless Frontiers Act (SA 2060). No defense or damages limitation has ever turned on the niceties of recordation of ownership at the USPTO. This would be a sea change in patent law. Something so radical at least should rise or fall based on thorough and thoughtful legislative debate, investigation and committee work, including testimony by experts in real estate law and patent practice.

Leahy-Tillis Amendments to Endless Frontier Act Opposed by Inventor Advocacy Group

The full U.S. Senate is currently considering passing S. 1260, the Endless Frontier Act, a bill that would establish a Directorate for Technology and Innovation within the National Science Foundation (NSF) that would work to establish U.S. dominance in crucial areas of basic research including artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and advanced manufacturing. The bill, which represents a bipartisan effort to address China’s ambitions to become a globally dominant technological power, includes a pair of amendments from Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) that would impact U.S. patent law by requiring foreign entities to register ownership changes to ensure the availability of infringement remedies, and by increasing the scope of ex parte reexamination to adjudicate whether patent claims are unenforceable for inequitable conduct. But according to small business and independent inventor advocacy group US Inventor, these amendments would negatively impact small inventors.

USIJ Responds to Remarks Made by Senator Leahy on World IP Day Regarding Prior USPTO Administration

In celebration of last month’s World IP Day, Senate Judiciary Committee Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman Patrick Leahy expressed his support for a determined effort to encourage more individuals and small companies across this country to invent new technologies and products. He also noted the need for the U.S. patent system to incentivize this effort. The Alliance of U.S. Startups and Inventors for Jobs (USIJ) strongly supports Chairman Leahy’s important objective of empowering startups and inventors, and we frankly think it has been underappreciated for many years…. However, we are concerned with one point raised by Senator Leahy without providing much detail – that the prior Administration took “steps to undermine the Leahy-Smith Act.”

Twist Emerges in Senate IP Subcommittee Leadership for 117th Congress

On Sunday, February 14, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced the Subcommittees and Subcommittee Chairs of the Senate Judiciary Committee for the 117th Congress. Many in the IP universe had hoped Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), the Ranking Member of the Senate IP Subcommittee for the 116th Congress, would be appointed the IP Subcommittee Chair, considering his strong support for various IP reforms along with the previous IP Subcommittee Chair, Thom Tillis (R-NC). Tillis will serve as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee this Congress, but Coons was not selected to serve as Chair.

USPTO Director Andrei Iancu Discusses Patentability of Algorithms, PTAB Proceedings at Senate Judiciary Committee

Sen. Harris followed up by asking whether algorithms were mathematical representations of laws of nature. “You’re getting right to the heart of the issue,” Iancu said. What Iancu said after that should be a major breath of fresh air to inventors and patent owners frustrated by Section 101 validity issues in the wake of Alice and Mayo: “This is one place where I believe courts have gone off the initial intent. There are human-made algorithms, human-made algorithms that are the result of human ingenuity that are not set from time immemorial and that are not absolutes, they depend on human choices. Those are very different from E=mc2 and they are very different from the Pythagorean theorem, for example.”