A patent reform conversation with Senator Coons and Congressman Massie

On Wednesday, October 7, 2015, I moderated a live Google Hangout with U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY). The conversation took place in Senator Coons’ office in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. Our conversation, hosted by the Innovation Alliance’s save the inventor campaign, focused on the major pending patent reform bills – the Innovation Act (H.R. 9) in the House of Representatives and the PATENT Act (S. 1137) in the Senate.

The first question I posed to Senator Coons and Congressman Massie was a broad-based, philosophical question. Unlike with virtually all other issues, patent reform is not a partisan political issue. Allegiance does not break down along party lines, but rather seems to depend philosophically on whether the individual believes patents promote innovation or whether patents hinder the progress of innovation. To start, I asked that simple question. Do patents promote or hinder innovation?

Senator Coons, who is a believer in s strong patent system, didn’t directly answer the question presented, although he did acknowledge that the question is “whether or not you think patents are essential and being able to defend those patents are essential to the vibrancy of our innovation system.” While he did not specifically say that he thinks patents are essential in this exchange, Senator Coons is on record with such views in many different forums. He is also the author and primary sponsor of the STRONG Patents Act, which presents an alternative patent reform that is widely recognized as being pro-patent and pro-innovator.

Coons, who spoke without notes and in a way that demonstrates a deep understanding of the issues, continually reiterated the need for patents to be defendable in court. He said, for instance:

Common across the advocates for a strong patent system in the House and the Senate is a profound belief that this constitutionally created and vital property right has to be defensible…that patent litigation has to remain capable of defending unique inventions, thus the Save the Inventor campaign. And those who are advancing the bills both in the House and the Senate that would change the patent litigation system are gravely concerned about what they view as so-called patent trolls and in the only hearing that we had in the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the bill in the current Congress, they really focused in on abusive patent litigation practices that do exist and that are a problem, but that I think can be dealt with more narrowly in a more focused and targeted way that just deals with abusive litigation practices…

On the issue of whether patents promote innovation, Congressman Massie’s response was hardly surprising to anyone familiar with the patent debate and Massie’s history. Massie is an inventor and one of only a few members of Congress to be a patent owner. He comes by his deeply rooted opinions out of experiences as an inventor and struggling entrepreneur. He said:

Well, you don’t have to believe or not believe, right? We’ve got 250 years of history in this country of innovation and we have the most innovation because we have the strongest patent system. The deal that our founding fathers gave us that was different from all the European models was what you create you own. And the charge that our Founding Fathers gave us in Congress was to promote the useful arts and sciences by granting for a limited period of time the exclusive use of an inventor’s works. So what we have to do is to decide, within that charter, how do you promote useful arts and sciences, and for what period of time? There are some people that believe that zero period of time is the correct period of time. That does not work.

Massie would then pivot to explain his own story, which is a very familiar story of an inventor starting from nothing to create a business built on the back of patented technology. Massie explained:

I’m not a lawyer, I’m an engineer. I went to MIT and I studied electrical and mechanical engineering because I love creating and right there in the laboratory and in the labs next to me people were inventing stuff all of the time and the great thing about being there in that hotbed at MIT is everybody wanted to start a company and the way you started a company was you had to go get capital and nobody was going to invest unless you had some intellectual property. So my startup that I spun out of MIT, my wife and I…we started right there in a married student housing dormitory…was licensed from MIT, from the Technology Licensing Office. Then, we went out and got venture capital and they believed in us and they knew we had a chance, but we had this limited period of time to get a return on that investment before the invention became public domain. That’s the great thing about patents. The deal you make with society is I’m going to tell you everything about how to copy this idea, and when my exclusivity lapses, everybody in the world can have it.

The entire video is available via YouTube. For a more complete transcript, please visit IPWatchdog.com.

10.19.15 | posts | Gene Quinn

Patent Reform in the House of Representatives

The Innovation Act (H.R. 9) has gotten the most publicity in the House of Representatives, but there are several other pending bills in the House, including the TROL Act, which has already been voted out of Committee.

What follows is a summary of the other patent reform bills pending in the House.

The TROL Act

The Targeting Rogue and Opaque Letters Act, more commonly referred to as the TROL Act, was introduced during the 113th Congress and passed the House Commerce Subcommittee with bipartisan support. The TROL Act addresses sending bad faith patent demand letters, clarifying that such activity may violate the Federal Trade Commission Act. The Act defines bad faith as either false or misleading statements or omissions, whether knowingly false, made with reckless indifference to the truth, or made with an awareness of a high probability that the statements or omissions would deceive the sender intentionally. The TROL Act also further authorizes the FTC and state attorneys general to bring actions to stop the abusive behavior, but also provides a good faith affirmative defense. The Act would further preempt any state law or regulation expressly relating to the transmission or contents of communications relating to the assertion of patent rights.

(more…)

05.27.15 | Patent Issues, Patent Reform | Gene Quinn

A Primer on the Innovation Act

It wasn’t so long ago that President Obama signed the America Invents Act (AIA) into law, on September 16, 2011. As with many complex pieces of legislation that will substantially revise an area of law, the AIA did not become immediately effective. The most dramatic changes became effective in two waves, one on September 16, 2012, and the other on March 16, 2013. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), along with the new post grant administrative proceedings to challenge patents, came into being in September 2012, and the U.S. changed from “first to invent” to “first to file” in March 2013.

Here we are, just over two years from the most significant change to U.S. patent law since at least the 1952 Patent Act, and there are more proposals for patent reform pending in Congress. There are four legislative proposals that are deemed “serious,” and a handful of marginal proposals, which make great sense, but which largely have no chance to be enacted.

(more…)

05.26.15 | Patent Issues, Patent Reform | Gene Quinn

Patent Reform: House Passes America Invents Act 304-117

The following post comes courtesy of Gene Quinn, of IPWatchdog and Practice Center Contributor.

At approximately 5:50pm [Thursday] the United States House of Representatives passed H.R. 1249, which is known as the America Invents Act, by a vote of 304-117. This bill differs from the Senate version of patent reform, S. 23, so there will be no bill going to the desk of President Obama just yet. There are important differences between the two bills, chief among them is funding for the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The bill passed by the Senate put an end to the practice of fee diversion, which occurs when the Congress appropriates the USPTO less than they collect in fees. The excess in the fees collected from users of the USPTO then go to the federal government as general revenues and are used for purposes other than the operation of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Indeed, now the fight will go back to the Senate where Senators will be asked to swallow the changes adopted by the House of Representatives, which seems unlikely. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), who are the respective champions of the bills in the two chambers will likely want to find compromise language that can pass both the House and the Senate. I have been told that a formal Conference on the bill is unlikely, which would mean that the Senate would need to hammer out language acceptable to the Senate while also being acceptable to the House.

Click here to read the full IPWatchdog publication.

06.24.11 | America Invents Act, Patent Reform | Stefanie Levine

Patent Reform Update: Reactions To House Vote on Patent Reform

The House voted to move ahead with debate on patent reform, but a spokeswoman for Majority Leader Eric Cantor,R-Va., said a final vote is now expected on Friday. The latest delay is a result of a House Rules Committee decision that an end to fee diversion should not be included in patent reform. This latest change has caused many industry groups who supported the bill to now change their position. What does this mean for the future of patent reform? Here is what the patent community is saying about these latest turn of events….