Posts Tagged: "legislation"

The United States’ share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity has dropped from 37 percent in 1990 down to 12 percent in 2021. Congress now seeks to secure chip supply chains to promote both economic competitiveness as well as U.S. national security.

What would you say about a technology commercialization system that kept on performing even through the worst pandemic in over a century? How about if it improved its performance over the previous year and was a critical factor in developing desperately needed therapies to protect people around the world? Would it seem reasonable that this was something that all of us should highly value and want to protect? You might think so, but some in Washington apparently don’t agree.

In 2001, six years before the iPhone appeared, a futurist named Ray Kurzweil wrote that humankind would cram 20,000 years of technological progress into the century that had just begun. There were skeptics, but today any of the world’s six billion smartphone subscribers can read his essay on their devices practically any time, any place they choose. As we move into an era of Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and 5G telecommunications that supports Kurzweil’s vision, we must make sure that our laws and federal agencies match the pace of invention and protect innovators from trolls who would game the legal system and government functions for their ill-gained profit. 

Sensing an opening after the Biden Administration’s recent Executive Order put a hold on a pending regulation prohibiting the misuse of the march-in rights provision of the Bayh-Dole Act for price control, Congressional opponents of the law dusted off a ploy that failed in the Obama Administration to try their luck again. They’ve written to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra urging them to march in to control prices of drugs created from inventions arising from R&D their agencies supported. We likened that aspect of the Executive Order to shooting ourselves in the foot, and it seemed as though it would be a while before we would know if the Administration would pull the trigger or not. With the recent Congressional actions, the day of reckoning may not be far off.

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.

The full U.S. Senate is currently considering passing S. 1260, the Endless Frontier Act, a bill that would establish a Directorate for Technology and Innovation within the National Science Foundation (NSF) that would work to establish U.S. dominance in crucial areas of basic research including artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and advanced manufacturing. The bill, which represents a bipartisan effort to address China’s ambitions to become a globally dominant technological power, includes a pair of amendments from Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) that would impact U.S. patent law by requiring foreign entities to register ownership changes to ensure the availability of infringement remedies, and by increasing the scope of ex parte reexamination to adjudicate whether patent claims are unenforceable for inequitable conduct. But according to small business and independent inventor advocacy group US Inventor, these amendments would negatively impact small inventors.

The full Senate Judiciary Committee today passed the Inventor Diversity for Economic Advancement (IDEA) Act, which seeks to direct the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) “to collect demographic data – including gender, race, military or veteran status, and income level, among others – from patent applicants on a voluntary basis.” Representative Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Congressman Steve Stivers (R-OH) reintroduced the bill in March of this year;  Senators Chris Coons (D-DE), Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) are also co-sponsors.

Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property released a discussion draft copyright reform bill titled the ‘Digital Copyright Act of 2021’ (the discussion draft). The discussion draft, which is intended to bring revolutionary changes to online copyright law, was developed based on recommendations in six hearings of the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property focused on reforming copyright law in the digital environment, two staff briefings, and four extensive Copyright Office studies. This proposed DMCA reform was released in order to solicit comments from stakeholders and other interested parties.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held its last hearing of the year on reforms to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) today, three days before Subcommittee Chairman Thom Tillis (R-NC) is set to release a discussion draft of a DMCA reform bill he has said will contain “revolutionary changes to online copyright law.” Tuesday’s hearing included representatives of YouTube and Facebook; Twitter refused to participate, and Tillis recently published a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey expressing his disappointment with the decision.

On Thursday, December 10, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, released text of bipartisan legislation titled the “Protecting Lawful Streaming Act of 2020” (the Act).  The Act would punish commercial, for profit streaming piracy services that willfully and for commercial advantage or private financial gain offer to the public illicit services dedicated to illegally streaming copyrighted material. The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), John Cornyn (R-TX), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chris Coons (D-DE), Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), and David Perdue (R-GA).

On October 17, 2020, the Standing Committee of the Thirteenth National People’s Congress (China’s top legislature) passed the Fourth Amendment to the Chinese Patent Law, which will become effective on June 1, 2021 (“Effective Date”). As I was digesting the news and browsing through the 29 newly published changes made to the previous version of the Chinese Patent Law, which was passed in 2008, a line from “The Song of the Pipa Player”, a popular poem written in 816 A.D. by Bai Juyi (one of the three most famous poets in China’s Tang Dynasty), came to mind: “Only after our repeated calls did she appear; her face half hidden behind the pipa she held.” Indeed, while the First, Second, and Third Amendment to the 1984 Chinese Patent Law each came out with clockwork precision eight years after the previous enactment—in 1992, 2000, and 2008, respectively—this Fourth Amendment took 12 years to incubate, and struck a number of new areas that will need to be further revealed in future practice.

The National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), in conjunction with the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), recently solicited public comments on the draft of “Measures For the Implementation of Early Resolution Mechanisms for Drug Patent Disputes (Trial)” (“Draft Measures”). The purpose of the Draft Measures is to establish an early resolution mechanism for drug patent disputes. The deadline for submission of comments is October 25, 2020.

The Defend COVID Research from Hackers Act was introduced on Tuesday by Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) with the goal of authorizing the President to “take swift action and add sanctions to countries trying to disrupt or hack COVID-19 research.” This bill is the Senate companion to legislation introduced in the House of Representatives in July by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

One thing you should never say in 2020 is: “Well, at least things can’t get any worse.” They can and often do. The latest exhibit—in the intellectual property space at least—is a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Azar, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Collins and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Hahn authored by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry. It’s also signed by 32 other state attorneys general, along with those representing the District of Columbia, Guam and American Samoa. They are demanding that the government use its authorities under the Bayh-Dole Act to march in against Gilead Sciences, the maker of the COVID-19-fighting drug remdesivir, so that it can be made more widely available at a lower cost.