[Ip-health] Dow Jones: Obama Administration Backs Proposed Changes To Patent System

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091006-709733.html

     * OCTOBER 6, 2009, 12:32 P.M. ET

Obama Administration Backs Proposed Changes To Patent System


    By Kristina Peterson
    Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--President Barack Obama's administration
supports major changes proposed in a landmark patent bill, including a
roughly 15% fee hike, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director David
Kappos said Tuesday.

"While a compromise, it clearly moves the ball forward," Kappos said
of the bill, which if approved would bring the first major changes to
the patent process in 50 years. On Monday, Commerce Secretary Gary
Locke wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing
support for the Senate legislation.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., pushes to harmonize
the U.S. patent process with international standards and grants the
patent office more authority to make rules and increase fees.

Kappos said he anticipated raising patent fees by 15% as an interim
measure to help the patent office manage its $200 million revenue
shortfall.

"As someone who until recently was on the other end of paying those
fees, I fully understand what this means," said Kappos, who formerly
was the head of intellectual property at International Business
Machines Corp. (IBM). "It's a significant ask on the part of the
intellectual property community."

To help reduce the growing number of patent lawsuits, the bill
includes a "gatekeeper" provision that permits challengers to try to
claim damages in court only if they have substantial evidence.

Forged as a compromise by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the
provision lays out a fair process for contesting patent rights, said
Gary Griswold, chairman of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent
Reform, which represents manufacturers and researchers including 3M
Co. (MMM), Caterpillar Inc. (CAT), General Electric Co. (GE) and Eli
Lilly & Co. (LLY).

"It doesn't allow either party to come in with some damage theory
without substantial evidence," Griswold said.

The administration opposes one major piece of the bill that would
require patent examinations to be performed in the U.S., Kappos said.

"It really ties our hands," he said, noting that an estimated half of
the office's workload comes from overseas applicants. The patent
office needs to be able to work with foreign patent offices if it
wants to make headway in reducing its backlog, he said. At the end of
the 2008 fiscal year, the patent office had yet to review more than
770,000 applications.

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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
thiru@keionline.org


Tel: +41 22 791 6727
Mobile: +41 76 508 0997