Posts Tagged: "Congress"

The Patent Infringer Lobby has ramped up banging the drum about “patent quality.” They dedicated a week-long campaign to questioning “patent quality,” which its constituents regard as a huge problem. Advocates have taken advantage of the vacuum left after U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu left the building. Anti-patent advocates are exploiting the new dynamic of Senator Patrick Leahy, coauthor of the America Invents Act (AIA), who now chairs the Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee. Leahy recently did the Infringer Lobby the favor of holding a hearing on this subject.

Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee held an Executive Business Meeting in which the Committee discussed and favorably reported four bills aimed at reducing prescription drug prices for consumers and curbing perceived abuses of the patent system by brand pharmaceutical companies. The bills would do so by increasing the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) authority to initiate enforcement actions against drug companies. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, opened the meeting with an explanation of the need for the bills. He said that nearly 40% of U.S. patients struggle to pay for medication. The world’s best-selling drug, Humira, brought in $16 billion in sales in 2019 and Humira manufacturer, AbbVie, has obtained 130 patents on the drug, with 90% filed after Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.

This week in Washington IP news, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider a series of bills that could limit pharmaceutical patent owners’ ability to enforce their patents against generic drug makers. Over in the House of Representatives, the House Science Committee will mark up a series of bills to support research and development as well as technology transfer and commercialization, while the House Europe Subcommittee will explore international case studies in offshore wind renewable energy innovation. Elsewhere, the American Enterprise Institute focuses on developments in the private commercial space sector, while the USPTO celebrates 75 years of the Lanham Act’s codification of U.S. trademark law this Tuesday. 

At today’s Heritage Foundation event in Washington, D.C., titled Restoring American Leadership in Patent Law and Innovation Policy, former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director (USPTO) Andrei Iancu began by lamenting the failure of decision makers to make the connection between intellectual property and innovation. Increasingly, policy makers think innovation just happens, Iancu explained, with too many believing monetization happens after the fact, rather than driving innovation. “Without IP, the free market does not participate, or does not participate to scale,” Iancu told the Heritage audience. Laurie Self, Senior Vice President and Counsel, Government Affairs, Qualcomm, agreed with Iancu and added that, without a strong patent system, there is no opportunity to maintain a strong innovation leadership position. Presumably alluding to developments such as the Biden Administration’s support for waiving IP rights under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) related to COVID-19 inventions and the recent Executive Order on Competition, Self said: “We are seeing a series of policies that if implemented would undermine our system… this cognitive dissonance is a threat.”

This week in Washington IP news, the U.S. Senate will vote on Tiffany Cunningham’s confirmation to the Federal Circuit, replacing Judge Evan Wallach; and a pair of committees in the House of Representatives, as well as the Senate Energy Committee, explore avenues that federal lawmakers have to stop the scourge of cyberattacks and ransomware impacting our nation’s infrastructure. The House Science Committee will also hold a hearing to discuss wireless spectrum needs for U.S. earth and space science research. Elsewhere, The Heritage Foundation hosts an event on restoring American leadership in patent law with Former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu and Retired Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul Michel, and The Brookings Institution focuses on possible frameworks to replace the invalidated EU-U.S. Privacy Shield for cross-border data flows.

On March 30, 2021, President Biden tapped Tiffany Cunningham to be the first African American to sit on the Federal Circuit. After a straightforward and speedy hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee later advanced Cunningham’s nomination with a 16-6 vote. With her confirmation now imminent, Cunningham is poised to become the first African American, and the first African American woman, to join the Federal Circuit bench. Now that she has reached this historic milestone, this article reflects on the significance and impact of Cunningham’s nomination.

In March of this year, a bipartisan group of senators asked Drew Hirshfeld, who is Performing the functions and duties of the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), to “publish a request for information on the current state of patent eligibility jurisprudence in the United States, evaluate the responses,” and provide the senators with a detailed summary of the findings in order to assist them as they consider appropriate legislative action. The letter gave a deadline of March 5, 2022 to submit a report on the topic. Now, a Federal Register Notice (FRN) scheduled to be published July 9 is requesting answers and input from stakeholders to 13 questions/topics to assist in that effort, according to a publicly posted draft of the FRN.

Former President Donald J. Trump announced today that he is suing Facebook, Twitter and Google/YouTube in separate class action suits, claiming, among other allegations, that the platforms have “increasingly engaged in impermissible censorship resulting from threatened legislative action, a misguided reliance upon Section 230 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, and willful participation in joint activity with federal actors.”… All three complaints take aim at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, dubbing it “[l]egislation passed twenty-five (25) years ago intended to protect minors from the transmission of obscene materials on the Internet, and to promote the growth and development of social media companies” that has outgrown its original intent and enabled each of the companies to become behemoths who censor content of their choosing.

The U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property recently held hearings on the topic of Protecting Real Innovations by Improving Patent Quality. The Subcommittee is to be commended for seeking practical solutions to improve patent quality. To this end, the author respectfully recommends that the Subcommittee and the intellectual property (IP) community take a close look at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)’s revised Performance and Appraisal Plan (PAP) for patent examiners.

During the Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property hearing, titled Protecting Real Innovations by Improving Patent Quality, held on June 22,  Jorge Contreras, Presidential Scholar and Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law of the University of Utah, testified under oath that patents are effectively the same thing as products, and seemed to suggest that executive fraud unrelated to patents must make the patents fraudulent too. This, of course, is a fallacy. It shows a fundamental and deep misunderstanding of what patents are and how they work, and completely misrepresents law and logic. If taken seriously, Contreras’ testimony would destroy the value of virtually every patent portfolio and further chill investment in new technologies. It is an alarming position coming from a patent lawyer and credentialed law school professor who claims he is “intimately familiar with the topic of today’s hearings.”

We’ve all seen him when driving by the strip mall. Trying to focus on the traffic, our eyes are diverted by “Tube Man,” a 10-foot tall hollow, collapsible stick figure with a fan at the bottom, adjusted so that the body repeatedly folds and then jumps upright, with arms whipping around in a constant frenzy, trying to grab our attention. And that’s the point. Tube Man accomplishes nothing except to demand that we look at what he’s doing…. And that, in my view, describes very well the recent rush of legislative attempts to punish China. That is not to say that China is our best friend. We are in serious competition, and it’s obvious that our leading position in some critical technologies has been targeted. That “giant sucking sound” you hear in the direction of China may be some cutting-edge secrets being displaced. We should be deeply concerned. We need a thoughtful, long-term strategy to respond.

This week Washington IP news, the Senate remains quiet on Capitol Hill but several committee hearings in the House of Representatives will explore the state of federally-funded wildland fire science, millennials turning to cryptocurrency investments for gaining financial independence, and legislative efforts to reduce emissions in the energy industry as well as securing U.S. communication networks. Elsewhere, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation explores manufacturing priorities under the Biden Administration and a new framework for international antitrust regulation at the World Trade Organization, while Hudson Institute hosts an event looking at the overlap between antitrust and intellectual property issues.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property on Tuesday heard from four witnesses on the topic of “Protecting Real Innovations by Improving Patent Quality.” The topic has been addressed by the Senate IP Subcommittee before, and long-debated in patent circles generally. Under the leadership of its new Chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the Subcommittee now seems to be revisiting the conversation and looking for practical fixes.

On June 17, a bipartisan coalition of U.S. Senators, including Thom Tillis (R-NC), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) reintroduced the International Cybercrime Prevention Act for consideration by the upper house of Congress. If passed, the bill would enact provisions giving additional power to law enforcement for seizing devices used for cyber attacks as well as create new criminal violations for individuals who knowingly engage in cyber attacks on critical national infrastructure.

This week in Washington IP news, the Senate Antitrust Committee looks at anti-competition issues in the smart home electronics industry, while the full Senate Judiciary Committee meets later in the week to discuss the nomination of Tiffany Cunningham to join the Federal Circuit bench. In the House of Representatives, committee hearings will focus on incorporating central bank digital currencies into the nation’s financial system, ways to improve small business prospects through improved broadband infrastructure and the future role of the Federal Aviation Administration in the commercial spaceflight sector. Elsewhere, Hudson Institute hosts an event on patents and innovation policy moderated by former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu, and the USPTO celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Lanham Act’s passage, which codified trademark law into federal statute.