Good morning! Progress was made on patent reform this week, but not enough to get a vote before the Senate went on recess for two weeks.
A Senate Judiciary Executive Business Meeting scheduled for Tuesday was postponed, as was a potential markup for yesterday, although a “tentative deal” was announced Wednesday. Chairman Leahy put out a statement Wednesday night saying that although members of the Senate Judiciary Committee “have made enormous progress” and they “now have a broad bipartisan agreement in principle,” patent reform would be delayed until after recess. Chairman Leahy “will circulate a manager’s package the day we return from recess, and the Judiciary Committee will consider that legislation the first week we are back.”
In other news, at CCIA’s 2014 Washington Caucus on Wednesday, FTCU.S. Federal Trade Commission. An independent regulatory agency charged with consumer protection and competition policy, which conducted several influential studies on how patents work in practice. Authored several key studies: 2003’s To Promote Innovation: The Proper Balance of Competition and Patent Law and Policy [PDF] and 2011’s The Evolving IP Marketplace: Aligning Patent Notice and Remedies with Competition [PDF]. Commissioner Julie Brill gave an update on the FTC’s 6(b) study examining PAEs, but emphasized that “Congress should not wait. Further patent reforms are clearly warranted now. I believe Congress should act as soon as possible.” For more on her speech, check out Patent Progress’s retweets of the CCIA account on Wednesday.
And on Monday, the Main Street Patent Coalition put on a great event on the need for patent reform, demonstrating how many non-tech industries are being affected by patent trolls.
Did we miss something? Questions or suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment below, mention us on Twitter (@PatentProgress), or email us: patentprogress[AT]ccianet[DOT]org
