Patent law passed in US, but Presidential veto could follow
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House of Reps. approve smaller fines in copyright spats A new US law which would reduce the damages to be paid out for patent infringement has been passed by one half of the US legislature. The proposed law was backed by large technology firms and banks but opposed by smaller tech companies and drug companies.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Technology industry executives are pushing the U.S. Congress to reform the way patents are issued in order to process them more quickly while also making sure they are legitimate. Patent reform was one of the major issues discussed at the Tech Policy Summit Monday in San Jose, California. Patent reform legislation considered, but not passed, in Congress last year is expected to be reintroduced. Among the key provisions sought is the hiring of more patent review specialists by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which one critic at the conference said has a backlog of as many as 1 million applications. Another provision would make it more difficult for so-called patent "trolls" to acquire a patent, claim another company infringed on it and then force the company to pay a settlement in order to keep its business going. Lastly, reform advocates seek an improvement in the quality of patents, pointing to cases where patents are issued for innovations that are not unique. They also propose a post-patent review process. In a speech Monday night at the summit, Deborah Platt Majoras, chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, endorsed the idea of post-patent review. "Patents are not a driver of innovation, they are an impediment to innovation," said Mark Lemley, a professor of law at Stanford University Law School, speaking at the summit. "Everyone has an example of silly patents, such as the cat exerciser laser pen," Lemley said, but the problems with the patent law are more serious than that. Often, one company asserts a patent right against another company and forces that company to stop production until the patent issue is resolved. "The patent holdup forces the company to settle for more money than the patent is worth," Lemley said. There are also delays in the process of approving patents. SAP AG, the enterprise software maker, once had to wait 44 months until a patent application was approved, said Tim Crean, chief intellectual property officer and a member of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, an industry group advocating reform. An official of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said the agency is planning to hire 1,200 patent specialists in fiscal year 2008. The patent office receives half of its patent applications electronically and wants to increase that number. Last year it approved 350,000 patents. But some at the summit want Congress toÂ move cautiously on patent reform. A group called the Innovation Alliance was recently formed to protect companies that patent technology but don't manufacture it. Taraneh Maghame, vice president and emerging technologies counsel for Tessera Technologies, said attempts to limit the rights of companies to defend patent rights could harm legitimate patent protection efforts of some companies. Tessera develops chip packaging technology and licenses it to chip manufacturers, such as Intel. "Not all of the tech industry is behind patent reform," Maghame said. Close to 300 people, including tech executives, advocacy groups and government officials, were expected to attend the Tech Policy Summit, which continues Tuesday.
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A bill to allow workers to form  unions by signing up, instead of voting, advanced in the U.S.  House of Representatives on Wednesday as the Bush  administration threatened to veto it.
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Telecommunications giant AT&amp;T and Microsoft took a patent battle to the US Supreme Court Wednesday, in a case that has wide implications for US firms doing business abroad.
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The Patents (Third) Amendment Bill, which might be tabled in Parliament during the coming winter session, is a Bill which will pave the way for a new patent law.
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(InfoWorld) - TheÂ U.S. congressman who chairs a House Judiciary subcommittee says Congress could pass an immigration reform bill by July, including lifting the limit on how many high-tech engineers can come to the U.S. for jobs. Representative Howard Berman, a Democrat from California, made the prediction while speaking at the first ever Tech Industry Summit in San Jose, California. "It could pass both houses by July, go to conference, and be on the president's desk by September," Berman said. Immigration reform deals largely with the 12 million illegal immigrants living and working in the U.S., but another provision of the bill affects technology companies in particular. Tech companies want the limit on H1-B visas raised to 115,000 per year, from 65,000, a limit that has already been reached for 2007. H1-B is the type of visa granted to skilled foreign workers in "specialty occupations," including IT, so that they can work in the U.S. "There is significant urgency on this issue," said Pamela Passman, vice president of global corporate affairs for Microsoft, also speaking at the summit. About half the students enrolled in engineering schools in the U.S. are foreign nationals who have to return to their home countries after earning their degrees, depriving U.S. companies of the chance to hire them,Â  Passman said. Republican President George W. Bush proposed a guest worker program for illegal immigrants, but opposition from within his own party kept the legislation from passing in 2006. Now, with Democrats in control of both houses of Congress and Democrats generally endorsing the guest worker program, passage is more likely, Berman said. Berman is chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, which will be considering patent reform legislation. Tech companies have long complained about people who buy up patents just to collect license fees, but many small inventors own patents and don't have the means to bring the patented products to market, so they license the patents to others. Reform is also expected to focus on the quality of patents granted. Tech groups have pushed for better funding for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and a post-patent review process as a way to challenge patents that may not be deserved. "I think determining validity and infringement could be settled more quickly in a nonfederal court system environment," said Berman. The Tech Policy Summit is expected to draw 300 people to Silicon Valley, including technology industry figures, organizers of technology lobbying groups in Washington, D.C., and lawmakers. Technology companies had not been active in lobbying the federal government 20 years ago but have been forced to get involved as Internet-related issues like privacy protection, cybersecurity, and intellectual property disputes have emerged, said Gary Fazzino, vice president of governmental affairs at Hewlett-Packard.
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President Bush will veto the defense authorization bill because of Iraq's concerns that the legislation could hinder redevelopment efforts by freezing the country's assets while courts deal with claims from victims of Saddam Hussein suing Iraq under U.S. law, the White House announced today.
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President George W. Bush on Wednesday vetoed legislation to expand federally funded embryonic stem cell research, triggering an uphill battle to override him in the Democratic-led U.S. Congress and likely pushing the issue onto the 2008 election agenda.
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Debate will now be political President Bush has used his veto to kill another bill that would have lifted some of the restrictions on research using human embryonic stem cells.â¦
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Sweeping changes to U.S. patent system have been approved by Senate and House committees. The high-tech industry is pleased, but others aren't.
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President George W. Bush vetoed legislation on Wednesday that would expand federally funded embryonic stem cell research, triggering an uphill battle to override him in the Democratic-led U.S. Congress and likely pushing the issue onto the 2008 election agenda.
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Still handing out daft patents, though The US patent system is set for a thorough review, according to reports, with the aim of improving the quality of patents awarded, and thus reducing the number of patent lawsuits.â¦
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The legislation, supported by technology and financial services companies, would limit damage awards for patent infringement and grant patents to the first inventor to file an application.
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The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the LG Electronics and Quanta lawsuit will have an impact on patent holders' rights.
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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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President George W. Bush on  Wednesday vetoed legislation to expand federally funded  embryonic stem cell research, triggering an uphill battle in  the Democratic-led Congress to override him.
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Companies on both sides of a patent overhaul debate in the U.S. Congress are stepping up the pressure on lawmakers, as some observers expect a vote soon in the Senate.Two groups, one supporting patent legislation before the Senate and one against it, held dueling media briefings on patent reform on Capitol Hill Thursday. Members of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, including lawyers from Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, and SAP, said they see broad support for the Patent Reform Act in the Senate and hope senators will soon&#160;follow the House of Representatives&#39; lead and pass the bill.The coalition sent a letter to Senate leaders Wednesday, calling on them to pass the Patent Reform Act. The bill will &quot;benefit all American workers and American consumers,&quot; said the letter, signed by 128 companies and organizations, including Amazon, Dell, eBay, and Intel.But another group, the Innovation Alliance, sent a letter to Senate leaders Tuesday urging them to reject the legislation.&quot;No compelling case has been made for a bill written in this fashion,&quot; read the Innovation Alliance letter, signed by 430 companies and organizations. &quot;It is based on claims of a crisis in the current patent system that does not exist, supported by selective assertions which do not hold up under scrutiny.&quot;Among the companies and organizations signing the Innovation Alliance letter were the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA, the NanoBusiness Alliance, Cargill, Coca-Cola, and Qualcomm.Both the House and Senate versions of the Patent Reform Act would overhaul the U.S. patent system, but two pieces of the legislation have generated the most controversy. The bills would create a new way to challenge patents after they&#39;ve been granted, and it would allow courts to change the way they assess damages in patent-infringement cases.Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent. The legislation would allow courts to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece.Those changes would create uncertainty about the validity of patents and drive venture capital money away from innovative companies, said Joe Kiani, CEO of Masimo, a medical equipment vendor in Irvine, Calif.Combined with recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, including one limiting the use of injunctions by plaintiffs in patent infringement lawsuits, the Patent Reform Act would significantly decrease the value of many patents, argued Kiani and other participants in an Innovation Alliance forum.The bill &quot;opens the way for other countries like China to bring technology here that will be a fraction of the cost and will be copies of our technology,&quot; Kiani said.Panelists at the Innovation Alliance forum said they&#39;d support patent reform that gives more money to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), allowing examiners to better research patent applications. &quot;We support prudent patent reform,&quot; said Sean Murdock, executive director of the NanoBusiness Alliance, a trade group representing nanotech companies. &quot;Simply stated, the current bill, in its current form, is not prudent.&quot;But members of the Coalition for Patent Reform, in a press briefing a couple of hours later, said Congress needs to fix problems with &quot;patent speculators&quot; suing established companies. The Supreme Court rulings and more money for the USPTO aren&#39;t enough, said Tim Crean, chief intellectual property officer for SAP.In the past two years, the Supreme Court has ruled on several patent issues, including a case involving eBay. In May 2006, the court overturned a long-term U.S. court practice of issuing injunctions against infringing products in nearly all patent cases.Despite the Supreme Court rulings, the number of patent lawsuits continues to grow, said Crean and Michael Holston, general counsel for HP. This year is shaping up to be a record year for patent lawsuits, Holston said.The coalition found about 625 patent lawsuits in 20 selected U.S. district courts in 1990. Through Sept. 30, the same 20 courts have seen about 1,550 patent lawsuits in 2007, the coalition said.HP will spend about $75 million defending against patent lawsuits this year, Holston said. More than half of those lawsuits come from patent &quot;speculators&quot; -- companies that buy patents for the purpose of filing lawsuits, he added.The patent system is &quot;being exploited through litigation games,&quot; added Mark Chandler, general counsel for Cisco.