House Leadership Says It Lacked "Adequate Input" on Senate Patent Reform Bill

    By Donald Zuhn --

Last Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) informed those watching the Committee's Executive Business Meeting that the Committee had reached a "tentative agreement in principle" regarding patent reform legislation (see "Chairman Leahy Announces "Tentative Agreement in Principle" on Patent Reform Bill").  Chairman Leahy noted that the Committee would release details regarding the bill "in the coming days" and after consultation with House legislators.  He also mentioned that he had been meeting with members of the House majority and minority leadership to discuss the Senate bill in an effort to prevent the legislation from becoming a "partisan issue."

On Friday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Committee Ranking Minority Member Lamar Smith (R-TX), and Representative (and House Judiciary Committee member) Howard Berman (D-CA) responded to Chairman Leahy's announcement by issuing a short statement of their own.  The statements reads:

We appreciate the Senate's most recent efforts to craft its compromise on patent reform legislation, but those efforts have thus far proceeded without adequate input from House members.  Now that we know the substance of the Senate's draft compromise, House members are in the process of reviewing the proposal in order to arrive at a bill a majority of both chambers can support.  We look forward to negotiations with the Senate in the hope of achieving such a bill.

Interestingly, the statement was released on the Republicans' separate House Committee on the Judiciary website, despite being issued by two Democrats and one Republican.  Also of interest is Rep. Berman's decision to sign onto the statement, particularly in view of the fact that he sponsored H.R. 1908, the patent reform bill passed by the House in September 2007 (Chairman Conyers and Rep. Smith were two of the bill's 23 co-sponsors).  H.R. 1908 contained a number of controversial provisions, including a damages provision that would have limited available damages (where actual damages are not established) to a reasonable royalty depending on the "economic value properly attributable to the patent's specific contribution over the prior art," a provision that would have authorized the USPTO to require information from applicants including search reports and other information relating to patentability searches; and a provision that would have given the USPTO substantive rulemaking authority (see 'Patent "Reform' Bill Passes House of Representatives").

In view of the response from Chairman Conyers, Rep. Smith, and Rep. Berman, it may take more than the few days Chairman Leahy believed he would need to secure the support of House leadership for his new patent reform bill.

Comments

[Ronald J Riley]

Their compromise is one made between the big transnational corporations, you know the ones who constantly ship jobs and America's collective intellectual capital out of America.

Over thirty percent of issued patents to domestic entities are to independent, academic and small business inventors. Those small businesses account for most job creation.

Patent Deform is a tool created by and for big business interests. It is "designed to allow the little people to get patents but to make it so costly to hold onto them that the little people are driven into bankruptcy the minute one of the big guys wants to take the invention.

Patent Deform is promoted by the "Coalition for Patent Piracy and Fairness" and by the "Coalition for 21st Century Patent Deform and HARMonization". Both groups want get out of jail free passes" for patent infringement and collectively are generally refered to as the "Piracy Coalition".

Patent Deform is class warfare designed to keep all the little people in line. It will disadvantage minorities more than others.

It is important to understand that banking and insurance interests are big players in the Piracy Coalition. I am sure readers now understand how greedy and immoral banking and insurance companies are, but you probably did not know that the large tech companies who partnered with banking and insurance to promote Patent Deform are just as bad.

Think about the implications of allowing the same companies who are shipping massive numbers of American jobs overseas having free reign to take any invention and do the same. Isn't it bad enough that they taking traditional jobs without having them destroy invention based new job creation?

The two Piracy Coalitions who are pushing Patent Deform are anti competitive. They hate having inventors disrupting their "profit without responsibility" agenda.

America has had all it can take of of free and irresponsible trade which is cover for invention and patent pirating transnationals to profit from selling out our collective intellectual capital and American ingenuity for their short term profit.

Have you seen half or more of your savings evaporate, seen your house value plummet, lost you house, your job, your health insurance or worse? All of us are suffering and far too many have been wiped out.

So while the people's assets have been rifled the banks are posting record profits driven by fees, and those fees are derived from another massive fraud on the people.

America is in decline because of the misdeeds of banking, insurance and transnational tech companies. It is time to hold them and their legislative stooges accountable because if we don't they will impoverish all of us.

It is time to start kicking legislative tail. America's inventors, that means real inventors (not so called innovators) are going to be taking legislative scalps and we want the public to join our efforts. The gloves are coming off.

We invite all, especially the unemployed to turn lemons into lemonade by working with us to send a clear message to Washington, a message where many in Washington have their disreputable tails kicked out.

Ronald J. Riley,

I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 8 pm EST.

[6]

"and we want the public to join our efforts."

On behalf of the public: "we decline".