Roundup of This Week’s Patent News: December 6 Edition

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Exciting news!  Yesterday, the House passed the Innovation Act by a 325-91 vote, with lots of bipartisan support.  As Matt Levy told The Hill’s Hillicon Valley, the legislation “is not perfect, but it has a lot of the key features to deal with the patent troll problem.”  I live-tweeted the debate of the bill and the amendments on @PatentProgress.  If you scan our feed, or the #InnovationAct hashtag, you’ll get a good idea of the concerns raised by members, and also the vote breakdowns for the eight amendments considered.  This is another huge step for patent reform, but there is still more to come.  It was also announced that there will be a hearing on December 17 in the Senate on “Protecting Small Businesses and Promoting Innovation by Limiting Patent Troll Abuse.”  We look forward to continued progress on this.

Earlier this week Matt Levy also had a post sharing Chairman Goodlatte’s excellent video about the Innovation Act.  And we put together a list of the hundreds of diverse supporters who have sent letters and publicly come out in favor of the Innovation Act.

Did we miss something?  Questions or suggestions?  Feel free to leave a comment below, mention us on Twitter (@PatentProgress), or email us: patentprogress[AT]ccianet[DOT]org

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Innovation Act Passes House 325-91, Patent Trolls Cry

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dewey defeats truman - patent trolls win

It was a big day in the land of patent troll reform, as the House resoundingly passed the Innovation Act with strong support from both sides of the aisle. The bill has some great features, including:

  • greater disclosure by patent owners so that accused infringers know what they’re accused of

  • discovery reforms to streamline and reduce the cost of patent litigation

  • a customer stay provision so that if someone is accused of patent infringement based on a product purchased “off the shelf”, the manufacturer can (with the consent of the accused infringer) step in to conduct the defense

If there was a real disappointment, it was that the “concern trolls” won this round by managing to keep any improvement of the covered business method review program out of the bill. Using everything from misleading statements to out-and-out falsehoods, a handful of protectors of the status quo created a panic about what should have been a fairly non-controversial provision.

I’ll be writing more about that in the days to come, because as we move to the Senate next, we don’t seem to have lost momentum: the Senate Judiciary Committee is having a hearing on December 17 on the patent troll issue.

And for all you patent trolls out there, here’s a little music for you (I apologize if there’s a commercial at the beginning, but it’s the official video):

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Big Week for Patent Reform – Innovation Act Heads to the Floor

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It looks like the Innovation Act (which was reported from the House Judiciary Committee a couple of weeks ago) will get a vote on the floor of the House this week.

EFF and a number of other groups (including CCIA) have set up a page to make it easy for you to call your representative and express your support for the Innovation Act.

And Chairman Goodlatte has put together this great video on why we need the Innovation Act:

Please show your support today!

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Roundup of This Week’s Patent News: November 22 Edition

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Big news this week!  On Wednesday evening, the House Judiciary Committee passed the Innovation Act by a 33-5 vote.  Matt Levy wrote a post explaining what’s in it (and what’s not), and why this is encouraging.  This is one huge step for patent reform, but it’s not over yet.  Another significant thing that happened this week was that Senator Leahy introduced his bill, the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act, on Monday.  A summary of the Leahy bill, the Manager’s Amendment of the Innovation Act, and the other eight bills, can all be found in Matt’s recent update of Patent Progress’s Guide to Patent Reform Legislation.  We look forward to seeing what happens next.

Did we miss something?  Questions or suggestions?  Feel free to leave a comment below, mention us on Twitter (@PatentProgress), or email us: patentprogress[AT]ccianet[DOT]org

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House Judiciary Committee Passes Bipartisan Patent Reform Targeting Trolls

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Yesterday, in a strong bipartisan vote (33-5), the House Judiciary Committee approved the Innovation Act.

There’s more work to do, but this is a big victory. Nearly every major reform that’s been discussed is in the bill:

  • changing the rules of patent litigation to reduce patent trolls’ leverage, including reducing the cost of discovery and requiring patent owners to give more information up front

  • adding protections for end users sued by patent trolls

  • requiring clearer demand letters

While it’s disappointing that there is no provision to deal with existing bad patents, that part of the fight isn’t over yet.

The problem of patent trolls has gotten so far out of hand that every member at the hearing agreed that something needs to be done, even if there were some disagreements over exactly what to do.

In the end, the Committee showed that Democrats and Republicans can still work together. The members of the House Judiciary Committee deserve enormous credit for putting party aside in order to help the businesses that are being victimized by abusive patent litigation.

Rep. Jeffries in particular worked for days to craft a compromise on fee-shifting, and he deserves major congratulations for pulling it off. And Chairman Goodlatte’s willingness to work with the Democrats and adapt the bill in order to garner more support produced much stronger reforms than many people expected.

There will be a lot to do in the coming weeks, but this is a great start.

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