tazzygirl
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Like its Senate counterpart (S. 23), the House bill includes an unfortunate provision that would shift America’s current patent system (in which the first person to conceive of an invention is granted a patent) to a “first to file” system that would turn our system into a foot race to the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO).
The U.S. has always awarded a patent to the first inventor to come up with an idea, even if somebody else beat him to the PTO. The Constitution, in fact, mandates that inventors have exclusive right to their discoveries. It’s one of the main tenets of our nation that have led our citizens to seek the American dream. Yet, some are insisting that we need to abandon our system, which has produced game-changing inventions, and harmonize with the rest of the world. With all due respect to our friends and allies abroad, I would not trade America’s record of innovation with that of any of those first-to-file countries.
The bill also would devastate inventors by expanding prior user rights and dramatically weakening the current one-year grace period for U.S. inventors. This grace period is critical to small inventors, who can use that year to develop their inventions, seek investors and raise funds to begin the expensive patent-application process.
The House bill, like its Senate counterpart, also would create a controversial new administrative post-grant review process. Current law already provides two separate administrative tracks to challenge a patent within the PTO, in addition to the opportunity to pursue action in court. This bill proposes to add a third post-grant review process despite two distinct downsides to creating a duplicative challenge process at the PTO.
First, it would waste resources. The PTO has a backlog of 700,000 patent applications waiting to be examined. That is where the PTO needs to focus its efforts, and using additional resources to duplicate current (and efficient) processes makes no sense. Second, it can be abused. Some companies already specialize in the use of patent re-examinations to tie up valid patents, not to remove invalid patents. We must avoid giving such firms another tool to abuse the patent system.
Many of America’s inventors and innovators are alarmed over these proposed changes to our patent system, and we must hear them out and address their concerns. We should listen to stakeholders of all sizes and perspectives to find a true consensus approach to modernizing our patent system. I urge Congress simply to halt fee diversion from the PTO, allowing the office to improve the patent-application process by hiring sufficient staff and updating its information-technology infrastructure. I look forward to working with my colleagues on and off the committee to craft a solution that will support and encourage all of our American innovators.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/26/patent-reform-proposals-threaten-american-prosperi/
Here are the actual bill summary links...
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-1249&tab=summary .. still in the House Budget commitee
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s112-23&tab=summary ... Passed the Senate now on to the House
Why doesnt this seem right?
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Patent reform - 
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