Posts Tagged: "Capitol Hill"

Multiple sources have confirmed that House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), will soon introduce the latest round of patent reform legislation in the United States House of Representatives. The bill, which will be nearly identical to the Innovation Act, which Goodlatte introduced during the 113th Congress, is expected to be introduced on Thursday, February 5, 2015. Goodlatte will bypass the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, and the bill will proceed directly to the Committee level.

With Republicans in control of both Chambers, the Administration may finally get TPA, fast- track negotiating authority for trade agreements that allows the President to negotiate international agreements that Congress can approve or disapprove but cannot amend or filibuster. Senator Hatch will likely have an ally in incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R- KY), who has signaled that TPA is a pro-business measure that could pass Congress and have the support of the President.

It might now be said that, in the United States, reward for innovation is another “loss” to be eliminated or minimized. Watch out inventors. Instead of address and study what should be done about supposedly offending actions, Congress stands ready to alter the rights embodied in all issued patents. The proverbial baby is in danger in this bathwater.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) will keep copyright high on the Judiciary Committee’s agenda in the 114th Congress. Given that Chairman Goodlatte has already held nearly twenty hearings as part of his copyright review, it is safe to say that the initial hearing stage of the review is coming to a close, although he is expected to hold several additional hearings early this year. The Copyright Office has recommended that Congress should consider providing new and more efficient processes to enable the resolution of small claims. Moreover, senior House Judiciary Committee staff has expressed support for a small copyright claims remedy.

Congress won’t accomplish much, if anything, if it gets mired in the substance of patent law during the inevitable patent reform cycle in the 114th Congress. Similarly, vilifying all innovators as if everyone who owns a patent is somehow evil and a patent troll will only work to divide the industry, and likely divide enough Senators to make getting anything enacted a virtual impossibility. But if Congress decides to focus on process, procedure and non-substantive patent matters like fraudulent and misleading demand letters, real reform is not only possible but likely. Further, by focusing on process and procedure anything that does get done would improve the patent system, won’t harm innovators and would strike a significant blow against the business model employed by the abusers.

In the Senate the Judiciary Committee is where any action relating to intellectual property reform will be played out. Key Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee, including Senators Grassley, Cronyn and Hatch, are on record as saying that more patent reform is on the horizon. Thus, the question is not if the Senate will take up patent reform during the 114th Congress, but rather how quickly it will be brought up in Committee. Additional patent reform in 2015 seems like a nearly foregone conclusion, but when everyone starts thinking that patent reform has a way of going no where fast, or at least that has been the history of patent reform in Congress.

With respect to intellectual property it is the House Judiciary Committee that will set the agenda for any potential legislative reform over the next two years, with the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet leading the way. The often controversial Darrell Issa has lost his leadership position on the House Oversight Committee, but he has gained the gavel of this IP subcommittee. Few anticipate that he will easily be relegated to the back bench, so look for an active and bumpy ride over the next two years.

The sensible response to all these new and evolving circumstances is not a rush to pass a bill, but a pause to evaluate the rapidly changing situation. Many expert leaders, including the former PTO Director David Kappos, have so suggested. So far Congress does not seem to be listening, but they should. The future of our economy and present job creation depend on a well functioning patent enforcement regime. Let’s make it more efficient, not eviscerate or hobble it.

It is good business for Google to have a weaker patent system, but insulating the natural monopoly that Google has become by destroying the patent system isn’t the answer for a prosperous America. As a result of misguided patent reform and bad judicial decisions a primary foundation of the great American economic engine is unnecessarily crumbling. It doesn’t need to be this way, but if we do not act soon, we will all pay dearly for this historic blunder.

This survey shows what those in the industry have long known — patent trolls and the need for patent reform are NOT the biggest problems facing the high tech industry in the United States. In fact, 92% of respondents feel that there are other things that are more concerning and a bigger barrier to innovation. But how can this be? The public has been consistently fed the line that patents stifle innovation. How can something that stifles innovation not be the biggest concern, particularly when so many of the tech giants from Silicon Valley have for years blamed the patent system for all their woes? The simple answer is that patents do NOT stifle innovation, and those who are intimately familiar with the industry know that to be true regardless of the lies promoted to advance patent reform, vilify innovators and lay the blame for everything at the feet of patent trolls.