Patent Reform Bill Progresses

Advocates of a patent reform bill stalled in the U.S. Senate say negotiators are close to working out compromises that would allow the legislation to move forward.

Late Wednesday, groups negotiating changes to the Patent Reform Act agreed on amendments that "constitute 90 percent of the bill's language," said Dan Sweet, a spokesman for the Coalition for Patent Fairness, a group representing several large tech vendors including Cisco Systems, Adobe Systems, Apple and Amazon.com.

Many large tech companies argue that some companies own patents just so they can file infringement lawsuits, and it's too easy for those companies to collect multimillion-dollar damage awards.

"This package of bipartisan amendments represents yet another major step for the Patent Reform Act," Sweet said. "It clears the way for final negotiations on the few remaining issues and builds critical momentum that will bring the bill to the Senate floor."

But a couple of the issues remaining are the major sticking points in the bill, a version of which passed the House of Representatives last September. The bill would allow a new way to challenge patents after they've been granted, and it would allow courts to change the way they assess damages in patent infringement cases.

Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent. The legislation would allow judges to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece. Opponents of the legislation say it would make it easier for large companies to infringe the patents of small companies or individual inventors.

The Coalition for Patent Reform expects the patent legislation to be considered by the Senate after Easter, Sweet said.

But one opponent of the legislation suggested the bill still faces an uphill battle. "This bill is in deep, deep trouble," Ronald Riley, president of the Professional Inventors Alliance, said recently.

The alliance and other groups have enlisted the help of unions such as the AFL-CIO, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, and the United Steelworkers in fighting the legislation. Union opposition has made the bill "toxic" to the democratic majority in Congress, Riley said.

Opponents of the bill will target lawmakers who support it, Riley added. "We're going to be drawing some real political blood on this," he said. "There's going to be a price paid."