Posts Tagged: "House Judiciary Committee"

A clique of multinational corporations is pushing legislation that will be a disaster for the rest of us, especially our universities with research components. Small inventors and their patrons in academia are being asked to swallow large dosages of poison encapsulated in the bill. Two features are especially concerning: mandatory fee shifting and involuntary joinder. Together and separately, they seriously weaken and put at risk the university technology transfer process, so necessary to America’s innovative and entrepreneurial way of life.

On Monday, May 11, 2015, IPWatchdog will a co-sponsor a roundtable discussion on patent reform. This event will take place at the law offices of McDermott Will & Emery, which is located directly across the street from the U.S. Capitol. Bernie Knight, a partner with McDermott and a former General Counsel to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, will co-moderate the event along with me. We hope you can join us for this discussion.

There were statements recognizing the need to keep open legitimate avenues to for innovators to protect themselves against infringement, and a strong desire to make sure that legislation focus on bad actions and actors. Not surprisingly, the Committee seems to largely think that the Innovation Act does strike the proper balance, although there was also recognition that changes could be made to make the bill better. USPTO Director Michelle Lee was wholeheartedly in support of fee shifting, justifying the position by saying that fault based fee-shifting will raise the costs for those who engage in abusive actions.

Patent reform is back on the agenda when Congress returns from recess this week. On Tuesday, April 14, 2015, at 2:00 pm ET, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on H.R. 9, more commonly referred to as the Innovation Act. Then on Thursday, April 16, 2015, at 11:00 am ET, the Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade (CMT) Subcommittee of the House Energy & Commerce Committee will also hold a patent related hearing. The subject of the CMT hearing will be the Targeting Rogue and Opaque Letters Act (TROL Act).

Incredibly, despite widespread damage to inventors, most staffers still do not understand how the patent system works to create innovation, jobs, and economic growth. They do not understand how patents drive capital to small patent-based businesses thus delivering the vast majority of our new technologies to American consumers. How can it be that they have not heard this perspective? Why aren’t the patent lobbyists in Washington like IPO and AIPLA protecting the patent system? Are the views of inventors so far apart from corporate patent owners? Or are the companies so caught up in other Washington issues that pushing hard for strong patent rights conflicts with other agendas and political asks? Too many Congressional staffers don’t understand the patent system, but staffers are not the ones at fault here.

There is no credible evidence behind proposals to make the drastic changes embodied in the Innovation Act, the removal of discretion from judges to judge each case on an individual basis with mandatory stays and fee shifting, and new rules for pleading and discovery that would undermine the ability of legitimate inventors and patent holders from enforcing their rights against infringers.

Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the Chair of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, struck a defiant tone this morning speaking at the National Press Club. Issa explained in no uncertain terms that the patent litigation reforms contained within the Innovation Act will not be watered down, period. He told the audience that never again will a defendant first learn of the allegations against them only at the end of the case.

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 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.