News Item
Senate passes patent reform bill(3/9/11)
The United States Senate passed the patent reform bill, S. 23, by a vote of 95-5 on March 8, 2011. California’s senators split on this vote, with Senator Boxer voting nay and Senator Feinstein voting yea. The 118 page bill, as passed by the Senate, may be found here. It does not include any provisions for limiting damages in patent infringement cases.
We have written about this bill here and here. The bill now goes to the “other body,” the House of Representatives. The House may amend S. 23, enact its own bill, or do nothing. Any bill passed by the House that is different from the S. 23 passed by the Senate will have to be negotiated with the Senate leadership, so that both houses of Congress can vote on a compromise bill in order to enact it. It should be remembered that although the House passed a patent reform bill, H.R. 1908, in 2007, that bill was not passed by the Senate.
The House Judiciary Committee will have jurisdiction over bills concerning patents. That committee is headed by Representative Lamar Smith of Texas. Representative Smith introduced the first patent reform bill in 2005, H.R. 2795. In a statement issued on March 8, 2011, Representative Smith praised the Senate for passing S. 23 and pointed out three features of that bill that met with his approbation: first-to-file, post-grant review, and third party submission of prior art. He promised to introduce similar legislation in the House of Representatives.
Passage of some patent reform bill appears to have broad bipartisan support in Congress this year. Passage of such a bill in 2011, or at least during this Congress (which ends in 2012) is likely, barring some difficulty concerning a compromise bill, most likely in the Senate, which has rules permitting a minority to delay or hold legislation. The fact that the Senate passed S. 23 without delay is favorable to eventual passage of a compromise reform bill.