Tentative Patent Reform Agreement Reached

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a longtime proponent of patent reform legislation, has announced that Committee leaders have reached a tentative agreement to reform the U.S. patent system. He declined to provide specifics, saying that the Committee "will be able to release details as they are finalized in the coming days, after consultation with the House." He stated that the agreement "preserves the core of the compromise struck in Committee last year."

House Judiciary Committee leaders expressed cautious optimism. In a joint statement with two other members, Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) said, "We appreciate the Senate's most recent efforts to craft its compromise on patent reform, but those efforts have thus far proceeded without adequate input from House members. Now that we know the substance of the Senate's draft compromise, House members are in the process of reviewing the proposal in order to arrive at a bill a majority of both chambers can support. We look forward to negotiations with the Senate in the hope of achieving such a bill."

Attempts at patent reform in the last three Congressional sessions have been unsuccessful. The most recent Patent Reform Act passed through Committee only to be stalled in Congress in large part because of disagreements over how to calculate patent damages. The U.S. patent system was last reformed in 1952.