On
Monday, a group of 56 companies sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gary
Locke (below) urging the Secretary "to push for improvements" to the
post-grant and inter partes examination
provisions of patent reform legislation currently before Congress. The Seattle PI's Microsoft blog published a copy of the letter
on Wednesday in an article entitled "Tech cos. protest patent reform in
letter to Locke."
In
the letter, the group acknowledges that "some versions of the legislation
have been improved this Congress," but asserts that "additional
improvements are in order to ensure that the end product avoids serious
unintended consequences."
According to the signatories, the "two most contentious issues in
the patent reform debate relate to patent damages and the expansion of
administrative challenges to patent validity." With respect to the first issue, the letter commends the
Senate for resolving the patent damages issue by introducing a
"gatekeeper" provision, and urges Secretary Locke to support that
approach (see "Senate Judiciary Committee Holds Hearing on Patent Reform"
and "Senate 'Patent Reform' Bill (S. 515) Voted out of Judiciary Committee"). The group states that "[a]ny
effort to go back to previous [damages] proposals will, in our view, endanger
the entire patent reform effort."
The 56 signatories to the letter include: Abbott Medical Optics Inc.; Acclarent, Inc.; Acorn
Cardiovascular, Inc.; Allergan Inc.; Applied Medical; ARCH Venture Partners; Ardian,
Inc.; Asthmatx, Inc.; ATS Medical; Aware, Inc.; Biomerix Corporation; Calibra
Medical; Carticept Medical, Inc.; Conceptus, Inc.; Corning Inc.; Cryptography
Research, Inc.; Cummins-Allison; Cyberonics; Digimarc Corp.; Dolby Laboratories;
Dynatronics Corp.; Elemé Medical Inc.; Evalve, Inc.; ExploraMed Development,
LLC; Fallbrook Technologies Inc.; The Foundry, LLC; ForSight; ForSight VISION3;
ForSight VISION4; GeneEx, Inc.; Ikaria Holdings, Inc.; InterDigital, Inc.; Intermolecular;
Medigroup Inc.; Miramar Labs, Inc.; Mohr Davidow Ventures; Monsanto; Moximed,
Inc.; NeoTract, Inc.; NeoVista, Inc.; Neuro Resource Group, Inc.; NeuroPace,
Inc.; Nims, Inc.; Novasys Medical; Optimum Performance Solutions LLC; OsteoMed;
Paracor Medical, Inc.; PolyRemedy, Inc.; Qualcomm Inc.; Streamline; Tessera; TherOx;
Transonic Systems Inc.; Urovalve Inc.; U.S. Venture Partners; Venture Investors;
The Vertical Group; Vibrynt, Inc.; and Viryd Technologies Inc.
Legislation specifically targeting one particular group or one particular person is called a "bill of attainder" and it's expressly prohibited in our Constitution. If this is the sort of thing you support you are NOT a patriot.
Posted by: Hilary | September 17, 2009 at 11:47 PM
The present patent reform proposals even with the suggested modifications are not designed to spur innovation. We have spent the last decade weakening our patent laws, so that they favor technology thieves at the expense of innovators. This has significantly reduced the innovation in the US. Lack of innovation is a major reason the US economy is experiencing the worst recession since the Great Depression. For patent reforms that will spur innovation and the economy see http://hallingblog.com/2009/05/29/real-patent-reform/
Posted by: Dale B. Halling | September 18, 2009 at 10:12 AM