Posts Tagged: "Patent Reform"

Earlier today more than 130 US manufacturing companies sent a joint letter to President Obama detailing their serious concerns about the economic impact that enactment of patent reform legislation would have on the US economy should such reform look anything like what was proposed during the 110th Congress last year. The letter sent to President Obama coordinated by the Manufacturing Alliance on Patent…

It seems that patent reform will once again be on the Congressional agenda during the 111th Congress, perhaps as early as late winter or early spring. See National Journal, by way of Patently-O.  It is hard to imagine that the Congress would be willing to so quickly take up such a thorny issue, and one that has largely pitted the…

Those familiar with the trials and tribulations surrounding recent attempts to get Congress to enact patent reform know that there were a number of controversial proposals that caused the demise of patent reform efforts in 2008.  One of the more controversial proposals was the proposal that would have significantly limited the amount of patent infringement damages awarded to successful patent…

Not long ago the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz, Inc., a decision that just screams for Congress to codify Rule 56 and settle once and for all the duty of candor that is owed to the Patent Office during the patent application process. To be perfectly clear, it…

I confess, it was me who fed Gene Quinn the erroneous info about Steve Kunin heading back the US PTO. I made an erroneous assumption when, in casual conversation with Steve at a Vail, Colorado CLE event, I asked Steve whether he was in touch with the Obama transition team and whether this might lead to his certain appointment as…

I hope and dream of the day when we get leadership at the PTO that will try and solve problems and reach out to the Patent Bar and see us as a part of the solution instead of the problem.  But as I said in my post yesterday on 7 reform suggestions for Congress, I doubt any of these will be…

After being told that patent reform in 2008 was all but a done deal, once again nothing happened.  I am happy that patent reform died in 2008 because the reforms that were being proposed were largely bad ideas, and they would have done absolutely nothing to address the many real and substantial problems that are facing the US patent system…

It is that time of the year when everyone makes their resolutions, most of which are sure to be broken almost immediately in most cases, particularly when the resolution deals with losing weight or exercising.  Not to be deterred, I have made both of those resolutions myself and I am cautiously optimistic about the likelihood that I will stay the course…

The reason for what appears to be a strange assortment of collaborators is the fact that tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Apple and others are facing what they characterize as a huge patent troll problem, and this so-called patent troll problem comes disproportionately from business method patents and software patents. So it is easy to see why the banks and tech giants have formed an alliance to go after these types of patents that impact technology, communication and software.

As the financial crisis is on the mind of virtually everyone in Congress, on September 24, 2008, Senator Jon Kyl (R, AZ) introduced a new patent reform bill into the Senate. Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) President and CEO Jim Greenwood released the following statement regarding the patent reform legislation: “BIO appreciates the efforts of Senator Kyl and his staff to…

The IPO is reporting that momentum for patent reform has been lost in the Senate and that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will not bring S. 1145 to the floor for action until at least after the Senate returns from recess at the end of March. Notwithstanding, my sources tell me that if patent reform does not happen by the…