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Who Cares About Health Care Reform? Patent Reform is Back!

By Peter Zura

EE Times reports:

Senate committee has struck a rough compromise on a controversial patent reform bill that has been stalled for several months while Congress has debated health care. A Senator leading the charge for reform suggested the compromise keeps the draft bill alive by balancing calls for lowering damages in patent infringement suits with calls for improving the quality of patents.

"Today we can report that we have reached a tentative agreement in principle that preserves the core of the compromise struck in committee last year," said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, speaking at an executive business meeting.

Apparently, the bill is a tweaking of the March 2009 copromise over damage apportionment.  According to Leahy, "I expect that we will be able to release details as they are finalized in the coming days, after consultation with the House."  Apparently, Director Kappos was involved in reaching the present agreement.  It's still not clear when the draft patent reform bill will come to the Senate floor for debate or, if passed, how the bill would be reconciled with one in an earlier stage in the House.

Read EE TImes, "Senator: Committee struck deal on patent reform" (link)

See transcript of statements made today by Sen Leahy at an Executive Business meeting on patent reform(link)

Reuters: "Tentative US patent reform pact reached" (link)

Full post as published by Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog on February 25, 2010 (boomark / email).