Senate Votes to Invoke Cloture on H.R. 1249

By Donald Zuhn --

Earlier today, the Senate voted 93-5 to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed to H.R. 1249, the House version of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.  Opposing the motion were Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY); Senators John Rockefeller IV (D-WV) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) did not vote on the motion; a list of Senators voting in favor of the motion can be found here.  The motion required a three-fifths majority vote of the Senate (i.e., 60 votes) to pass.

As a result of the passage of the cloture motion, further consideration of H.R. 1249 by the Senate will now be limited to thirty hours (which includes the time used for roll call votes, quorum calls, reading of amendments, points of order, and inquiries to and responses by the Chair), no Senator will be allowed to speak on the legislation for more than one hour (Senators wishing to speak on the bill will be permitted to do so on a "first come, first served" basis), and only amendments to the bill presented prior to the cloture vote will be permitted.  According to the Senate Calendar of Business for Wednesday, September 7, the Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 1249 upon the conclusion of tomorrow's morning business.

In a press release posted on his website today, Sen. Coburn (at left) provided a reason for his opposition to the cloture motion, declaring that "[f]ee diversion saps the lifeblood of the American economy -- innovation and invention -- in order to subsidize the desire of career politicians and appropriators in Congress to avoid hard choices," and adding that "[f]ee diversion operates like a tax on innovation, because it requires entrepreneurs to spend more money and time on activities than they would otherwise if patent fees remained fees."  Reviewing the history of the fee diversion provisions in the Senate version of the America Invents Act, Sen. Coburn states that:

The Senate has already voted to end fee diversion, by a margin of 95 to 5.  That version of the bill the Senate passed included my amendment that sets up a new revolving fund at the Treasury in which user fees that are paid to the Patent and Trademark Office for a patent or a trademark go directly into the revolving fund for the office to use to cover its operating expenses.  Congress would no longer have the ability to take those fees and divert them to other programs; fee diversion would be ended once and for all -- no more games, no more gimmicks.  My amendment was also in the bill that was passed by the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 32 to 3.

Unfortunately, the House gutted my amendment after negotiations with the House Appropriations Committee.  The appropriators are insisting, of course, that they have no intention of diverting fees.  History suggests they are not to be trusted.  They promised to end this practice in the past and kept doing it.

There have been some reports that Sen. Coburn introduced a pre-cloture amendment to restore his previous anti-fee diversion provisions to H.R. 1249.  The Senator gives some credence to those reports by stating that:

I intend to give Senate appropriators the chance to back up that claim by voting on my amendment to end fee diversion.  If my amendment fails, I will do everything in my power to slow the bill and highlight this egregious tax on innovation.

Comments

[Jaded Investor]

I would like to propose an amendment to give Schumer's property to the homeless. The same way he is taking my property and giving it to the banks...only difference being the homeless are more deserving.
But this could never happen in America because our properties as well as our rights are protected under the Constitution...right?