This afternoon, we kicked off our much anticipated 2014 D.C. Fly-In, organized by TechVoice, the partnership of CompTIA and the Technology Councils of North America (TECNA), with an important panel on patent reform.
Vishal Amin, majority senior counsel, House Judiciary Committee, discussed how the costs associated with abusive patent litigation are a considerable burden for small- and medium-sized IT businesses trying to get on their feet and compete within a $3.2 trillion global industry.
During the first year of the 113th Congress, there were several impactful legislative proposals introduced and discussed on patent reform within the relevant Congressional committees. In December, the House of Representatives passed “the Innovation Act” (H.R. 3309) by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 325-91. The Senate is likely to consider several proposals in early 2014.
Amin discussed the specifics of these bills and their prospects for enactment in 2014, including fee-shifting provisions, which provide that the loser of a patent infringement litigation would have to pay the attorney’s fees of the winner unless the loser’s positions were objectively reasonable. Other provisions discussed included a transparency provision, a customer state provision and a joiner provision.
Amin felt strongly felt that the provisions of H.R. 3309 would change the environment of abusive of abusive patent litigation.
We also heard from Alexandra Givens, senior counsel, State Judiciary Committee, who discussed several patent litigation reform bills on the Senate side. She felt that we needed to keep the momentum on getting a patent reform bill passed. She discussed several other bills pending on patent reform including one introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that focuses on demand letters. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has introduced a bill that focuses primarily on making the covered business method review program permanent and extends the program to all industries. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has introduced a bill that focuses on patent litigation and increases the requirements for complaints in order to provide more information and make the process more transparent. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) has a bill that has been introduced but will likely focus on increased transparency around demand letters and potentially include a database that discloses demand letters that reach a certain threshold.
