Patent Law

Howard Berman and patent reform

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

When Berman first began working on patent reform several years ago, he was surprised at how strong the passions were for these arcane matters of "apportionment of damages," "post-grant review," and "defense of inequitable conduct," he said, adding that it quickly became clear that a bipartisan effort would be needed to advance the initiative.

"These are not issues which you could keep any substantial percentage of your constituency awake to listen to, but there are very strong feelings about them," he said. "We knew that there was a great deal of sympathy for [reform] in certain parts of the high tech community and certain parts of the financial community, and there were concerns about it from some old-line companies and pharmaceutical companies."

Ongoing concerns may well be enough to postpone patent reform until the next Congress convenes. The House and Senate are scheduled for recess most of August, and, with the election season looming, will likely adjourn toward the end of September.

The article does not mention how Berman conducted the House hearings (no inventors allowed to talk, but Jaffe/Lerner got play) or how Berman reminded folks of how they might want to get other things done.

Full post as published by IPBiz on August 02, 2008 (boomark / email).