Posts in Capitol Hill

Yeseterday I wrote an article titled Obama to Fund Entrepreneurs in Latin America.  In this article I discussed President Obama’s remarks while at the Summitt of the Americas, particularly picking up on his pledge to send $448 million dollars to foreign countries impacted by the economic crisis, and a plan to create a fund to restart the lending to businesses and entrepreneurs…

For some time now I have been writing about how a patent stimulus plan would revitalize the economy, but I am all fired up today after a flurry of comments and e-mail exchanges regarding some of my recent blog articles. It is way past time to rethink the patent application process and how patent prosecution is carried out by patent examiners. …

Dr. Chris Mammen focuses his practice on patent and related intellectual property litigation and appeals. Twenty years ago, in the 1988 Burlington case, the Federal Circuit expressed its displeasure with the frequent assertion of the inequitable conduct defense in patent litigation, famously calling it a “plague.” Later that year, in the en banc portion of the Kingsdown case, the Federal…

I recently received an e-mail from Ron Katznelson, who is the Founder and President of Bi-Level Technologies in Encinitas, CA.  Dr. Katznelson is a named inventor in more than 25 U.S. patents and his research and development interests include optimal signal design, digital RF signal processing, digital television, signal representation & sampling theory, intellectual property management and patent law.  Over…

As I sit here listening to the Executive Meeting of the Judiciary Committee on patent reform, things are getting extremely contentious.  Senator Specter (R-PA) has said that he would rather wait and not vote this bill out of Committee until Senator Kyl (R-AZ) has an opportunity to submit his amendments relative to the post-grant review process.  Apparently Senator Kyl has…

The Senate Judiciary Committee Executive Meeting on the Patent Reform bill presently working its way through the Senate just ended, at approximately 10:30 am.  Last week, on Thursday, March 26, 2009, Senator Arlen Specter announced that compromise was close, and that changes to the patent bill would be “very significant.”  It would appear as if Senator Specter was not just blowing…

The Senate Judiciary Committee did hold a meeting this morning discussing several appointments pending before the Committee and pending patent reform legislation.  The meeting was quite brief, lasting less than 30 minutes, presumably because there is an important mark-up meeting regarding the Budget.  According to Senator Leahy, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senators will once again meet regarding patent reform on…

On Monday I wrote about how Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) was opposed to the pending patent reform legislation and how there was going to be an Executive Meeting of the Judiciary Committee this morning at 10:00 am to discuss some pending nominations before the committee and the patent reform legislation supported by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Senator Orin Hatch…

Patent reform will once again take center stage this week when Senators on the Judiciary Committee discuss the Leahy-Hatch patent bill in an Executive Business Meeting scheduled for Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 10:00 a.m., in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226. With patent reform in the air and seemingly rushing through the Congress, it was believed that the…

According to Reuters, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) says that the House and Senate are close to agreeing on language for a patent reform bill that would virtually ensure its passage. According to Hatch, patent reform will happen this year, saying that he would be shocked if patent reform was not enacted in 2009. Hatch says “[th]is is the closest we’ve…

In a new, interesting and exciting twist, green technology companies are joining the debate about whether Congress should enact sweeping changes to the US patent laws and are concluding that the Patent Reform Legislation submitted in both the US House and Senate is flawed and should not be enacted.  This is a potentially monumental event in the patent reform saga…

There is a lot of money sitting on the sidelines just waiting for the climate to change enough to warrant investment.  By some estimates the amount of capital lying in wait is perhaps as much as $10 trillion.  With no end in sight on just how low the Dow will fall, fears that banks will become nationalized have spooked investors. …

The Chairman of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, Gary Griswold, released the following statement after the introduction of The Patent Reform Act of 2009, in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. The bills introduced in the House and Senate today contain several provisions that did not have sufficient support to become law because of the potential…

U.S. Reps. Don Manzullo (R-IL) and Mike Michaud (D-ME) today said the latest patent reform bill introduced in the House and Senate this afternoon would actually weaken intellectual property protections for American manufacturers and put hundreds of thousands more Americans on the unemployment lines.

PRESS RELEASE: Suffern, N.Y., March 4, 2009 – General Patent Corporation (GPC), a leading patent licensing and enforcement company providing assistance to small inventors and entrepreneurs throughout the United States, announced its disappointment with the latest Congressional initiatives to reform America’s patent laws. With the nation expecting more from the new Congress and the newly-elected Obama administration, it was hoped…