Consumer Groups Back Patent Bill
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Five consumer groups have given their support to legislation that would overhaul the U.S. patent system, saying the bill would create fairer penalties for infringement.
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Lobbyists: 1, Consumers: 0. In a not so surprising move, AT&T, Microsoft and others managed to kill a proposed Indiana state pro-consumer identity theft bill.
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The House Committee on the Judiciary approved far-reaching legislation to reform the nation's patent system Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Legislation that would overhaul the U.S. patent system would hurt innovation and decrease the value of patents, representatives of two tech companies said Wednesday. Though the legislation is supported by many large IT vendors, two bills now being considered by the U.S. Congress, both called the Patent Reform Act, go too far in watering down the patent system, said representatives of Texas Instruments (TI) and AmberWave Systems, a New Hampshire semiconductor manufacturer. While both companies support large chunks of the bills, one in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate, provisions that would change the way courts apportion damages in patent lawsuits and allow new ways to challenge existing patents would hurt their businesses, said Christopher Gallagher, a lawyer representing AmberWave. "For more than 200 years, the [U.S. patent] system has worked well," Gallagher said during a debate sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus. The patent reform debate is often portrayed as high-tech vs. large pharmaceutical companies, but TI and AmberWave are among the tech companies asking Congress to scale back its efforts to change the patent system. Representatives of CiscoÂ and the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade group representing Microsoft, Dell, and IBM, called for Congress to pass the patent reform bills. Cisco spends $45 million a year defending itself against patent lawsuits, said Matt Tanielian, director of government relations for the company. The company currently is defending against a dozen patent lawsuits, "most of them by companies that have never built or sold anything," he said. Patent reform is the company's top priority in Congress this year, Tanielian said. "There's a lot of bad patents out there," he said. "When you get sued, you ought to get a fair shake." Among the most controversial issues: The bills would change the way courts apportion damages when a company is found to infringe a patent. Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent, but Cisco and other supporters of the bills want Congress to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece. The current system encourages lawsuits by patent holders hoping to win a legal "lottery," said Emery Simon, a lawyer for the BSA. The awards are unfair because the small piece patent holders often add to a larger product "is less than what they're trying to claim," he said. But Amy Burke, TI's director of government relations, said the apportionment changes would take away from the value of patents. "This language would trivialize damages and actually encourage infringement," she said. Another major issue in the bills is a new way of challenging patents after they're issued, called post-grant review. The bills would allow companies sued for patent infringement to file challenges with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) The post-grant review would create a continuing question about whether a patent was valid, making it difficult for small companies like AmberWave to get funding, Gallagher said. "If we can't get venture capital, we can't function," he said. Instead of a new way to challenge patents after they're granted, Congress should focus on giving the USPTO more money, he said. "The way to ensure patent quality is to get it right the first time," he said. BSA's Simon said worries about a new post-grant review watering down the value of patents are overblown, because there are several ways to challenge patents now. But the USPTO's current patent-challenging mechanisms don't work well, and the most common way of challenging a patent, in a lawsuit, can cost millions of dollars, he said. "We think administrative challenges are good things," he said. "It saves time, it saves money."
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Patents that result from collaboration between universities and companies won new protections from legal challenge under legislation that passed Congress over the weekend.
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Legislative leaders voiced new backing for embryonic stem-cell research yesterday, speaking out after Californians voted to spend $3 billion to lure the companies and scientists engaged in the much-debated research.
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The Senate passes a copyright bill that is not as bad as digital rights activists had feared. The bill drops language that would have banned tech that would have allowed people to skip commercials. By Katie Dean.
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Internet service providers and other technology firms are proposing to soften a bill in Congress that they claim will make them targets of frivolous entertainment industry copyright lawsuits.    The group, which includes Verizon Communications Inc., SBC Communications Inc...
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Ziff Davis - Opinion: Release of patented code will look good to Congress and win some favor in open-source community.
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A majority of the members of the Federal Communications Commission told a House panel yesterday that they support an open-access requirement for the coming radio spectrum auction that would give consumers more choices for cellphone devices and services.
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The legislation, supported by technology and financial services companies, would make patents harder to obtain and easier to challenge.
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Signs of shop floor support for consumer groups urging action over soaring prices.
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Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives pledged on Friday to pass immediately a business-backed bill to curb class action lawsuits, if the Senate first approves the measure without changing it.
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The House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill to overhaul the nation's patent system, overcoming objections by many Republicans, small inventors and some labor unions.
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The U.S. House of Representatives hasÂ passed a bill to overhaul the nation's patent system, overcoming objections by many Republicans, small inventors and some labor unions.
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Supporters of a major rewrite of corporate tax law are optimistic they will be able to complete congressional action this week on legislation needed
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WASHINGTON -- A consumer-rights group's challenge to a deficit reduction law ended Monday when the Supreme Court let the law stand, even though the House and Senate never approved identical versions.