Senate Democrats have introduced a patent reform bill in the US Senate that aims to reform the USPTO’s post-grant proceedings established by the America Invents Act. This bill, abbreviated the STRONG Act, aims to bring the practices of the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board in line with those of district courts. Under the bill, patentees would be granted one amendment to their patent as a matter of right and would be able to submit more evidence in support of their patent, and claim construction standards by the PTAB would be the same as in district court. The bill would also limit who could file an IPR.
House Republicans had introduced their own bill, the Innovation Act, in 2013, and have recently reintroduced it. The bill aims to make frivolous patent litigation more difficult. Among other things, the bill requires courts to make decisions about whether a patent is valid or invalid early in the litigation process, and when a case is declared frivolous, forces the plaintiff to pay the defendant’s legal fees.
Both bills have been controversial. The STRONG Act, which has been put forward as being “pro-patentee,” has been criticized as being “pro-troll.” The Innovation Act, on the other hand, has been criticized as excessively weakening intellectual property rights protections.
source: Maier & Maier, PLLC
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