On 9/6/11, US Business & Industry Council (USBIC) arranged a briefing for Senate staff about the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (H.R.1249)(formerly known as the Patent Reform Act of 2011).
This briefing’s purpose was to make the Senate aware of many of the problems with this horrific legislation. The panelists were (from right to left (facing out from the panel)):
Chief Judge Paul Michel (retired), U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
Gary Lauder, Lauder Partners, Silicon Valley venture capitalist (recording, so not seen)
Valerie Gaydos, Founder, Angel Venture Forum
Kevin Kearns, President, U.S. Business & Industry Council, Moderator (at podium)
Jonathan Massey, attorney and constitutional expert
Dr. Pat Choate, author, Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization
The main video of the presentations will be posted by USBIC.
Some excellent sound bites here from Judge Michel regarding the bill.
At 11:41 he talks about FTF not being worth wrecking the patent system.
At 12:00 he said of Post-Grant Review: “I can guarantee you that if I went into private practice, [under this bill] I could hold up any patent for almost a decade in post-grant proceedings. It would never get to trial in the district court.”
At 12:53 “It’s a big setback, not a step forward, and the idea that it’s going to create jobs is a joke.”
At 13:15 “Passing the bill is going to slow down the queue, not speed it up, so how can it possibly create jobs?”
HD version is available. More info: http://bit.ly/patentreform
[…] US Business & Industry Council (USBIC) briefing on America Invents Act (Patent Baristas) […]
After all the Administration and Democratic Party hype about clean energy and jobs, the America Invents Act (promoted by Leahy, Kerry, Schumer and others) will be a key clean energy technology killer,
and, far from being a jobs bill, it will be a jobs, startup and developing company killer.
Readers will be intrested in hearing the comments of John Duffy of UVA School of Law (http://bitly.com/Forum-Page†)on the mind boggling complexity and new injustices added by the AIA. Just before the Senate vote, Leahy, Schumer and Kerry were openly contemptuous of the objections to this new system and the special dispensation awarded to the financial services industry and the Medicines Company. Follow the link above to a patent reform forum recently held at the University of California’s campus in Washington, DC. Sponsored by the IEEE with support from NSBA the theme was the impact of the American Invents Act on patent protection of inventions, patent practice itself, startup businesses and financing, and science and engineering jobs. The impact described in each of the presentations is verifiably negative. Each is worth listening to and the note worth reading in detail. The speakers included, as above, Judge Paul Michel, retired Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and Valerie Gaydos but also: John Duffy; Ron Katznelson, an enterpreneur and inventor; Ron Hira, Rochester Inst Tech; Lisa Kuutila, Univ.New Mexico; Herbert Schwartz, patent litigator and author, “Patent Law and Practice”; and Janet Gongola of the USPTO. All of the materials are worth listening to and/or reading.
It’s a true American tragedy–and travesty.