Posts Tagged: "Congressman Ryan"

California Dreaming: Mitt Romney and the Inter Partes Rebuke of Trump

Just when you thought the race for the White House couldn’t get any more unpredictable and bizarre, the 2012 Republican Nominee rebuked the current Republican frontrunner, Donald J. Trump. Romney won’t rule out a possibility of accepting the mantle if drafted at the Republican Convention, although he says he will endorse one of the remaining three candidates at some point. There is always the possibility that Romney is trying to keep the door open for someone else, perhaps his former running mate and current Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI). Given the Romney turn of events we thought it might be appropriate to take a look at what we know about Romney and Ryan as it pertains to patent and innovation policy.

Patent Reform Returns: Venue Reform Bill to be introduced in Senate

While widespread patent reform seems unlikely during the remainder of the 114th Congress, targeted patent reform is another matter entirely. Indeed, the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship recently held a hearing largely attacking the America Invents Act (AIA) and the current reform bills and in a bi-partisan manner. And this week we may see a bi-partisan push in the Senate for a bill that focuses only on venue reform, which will be co-sponsored by Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO). The bill, available in draft form, is titled the Venue Equity and Non-Uniformity Elimination Act of 2016.

Will a Patent Question Come Up At The Presidential Debates?

At this point in the presidential cycle it is too early to expect a great deal of substance on issues like patents? The point where patents may come up in the debates will be in these application layer issues of drug pricing, taxes or maybe trade. But even then the discussion will be delicate and nuanced, unless we have a February 2008 situation. Sure litigation gamesmanship (generally and not just patents) remains important and perhaps for reasons not widely appreciated given the recent Supreme Court decisions on class action lawsuits and arbitration issues that have changed the balance of the force. Senator Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and Senator Rick Santorum have already publicly expressed specific views about the Constitution and the patent system. And certainly the Constitution gets referenced a lot at the debates. But are they going to use their finite time at a debate to discuss patents when there is broader interest in guns, terrorism, refugees, wars, and the powers of the president?

Patent Reform in 2016, Maybe Not as Dead as you Think

As interesting as the Senate may become when patent reform resurfaces, the dynamic in the House will be fascinating for many reasons. Since patent reform stalled there is a new Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan (R-WI). Speaker Ryan has said he plans to return the House to regular order and allow business to trickle up from members to the full House rather than have legislation forced down from leadership on Members. It is widely known that Goodlatte and Issa continue to want more patent reform and are seeking opportunities to push forward to a vote in the House. Will Speaker Ryan allow the Innovation Act to come to a vote in the House?

The Advantages of Enacting a Patent Box Regime

The exact terms of a patent box will vary depending on what the drafter is trying to promote. For example, the tax preference could require that the profits be derived only from a patent secured in that country or that the patented product be the result of domestic R&D. The Boustany-Neal draft legislation is called the “innovation box” and would impose an effective tax rate of 10% on all innovation box profits by creating a deduction equal to 71% of a corporate taxpayer’s innovation box profit.