On Tuesday, September 6, the U.S. Senate voted 93-5 to end debate on patent reform, called the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011 (HR-1249). On Thursday, the Senate passed HR-1249 without amendment in a bipartisan 89-9 vote. And on Friday, September 16, President Obama signed the bill into law, marking the first U.S. patent reform act in 60 years, ringing in a much needed and timely overhaul of U.S. patent law.
HULSEYIP recently gave a presentation on patent reform at the IC2 Institute of the University of Texas. If you missed it, please click here to see information about scheduling an on-site educational program with us to learn about the America Invents Act.
The Austin American-Statesman recently published my article on the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011. In case you missed it, you may find this article at http://www.statesman.com/opinion/insight/patent-reform-whats-in-it-for-austin-1818301.html.
Here is an excerpt:
Patent Reform: What's in it for Austin?
By William N. Hulsey III
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Published: 7:06 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, 2011
In 2010, nearly 108,000 U.S. patents on inventions were issued to U.S. inventors, with Texas receiving more than 7,500 second only to California, and more than those issued in all but four countries: Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Texas exports more than $206 billion in products to foreign markets and billions more to U.S. markets outside the state. As much as one-third of these exports include technologies and innovations protected by the intellectual property laws, particularly the patent laws. And you don't need to look much to see that Austin tops a number of lists of the nation's most progressive and proactive entrepreneurial and innovative centers. So Texas, and especially Central Texas, holds great stakes in the U.S. patent legal system, and these laws are about to change.
For the past six years, members of Congress have struggled to reform patent law, which has lain nearly unchanged for about 60 years. On June 23, the U.S. House overwhelmingly voted for the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. In part named after Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, who has championed the patent reform effort since 2005, the bill aims to reduce frivolous and costly litigation, increase patent certainty, reduce the time required to receive a patent, reconcile our laws with foreign patent systems and promote the creation of American jobs. Earlier this year, the U.S. Senate passed similar legislation 95-5. Based on these successes, it appears that some version of patent reform will become law. (Click to see full article)
