The Senate Judiciary Committee appeared to still be...
The Senate Judiciary Committee appeared to still be in negotiations Friday afternoon on compromise language for the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720), parties told us. The committee had delayed a markup of the bill until Tuesday afternoon to allow…
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additional work on the compromise, which will be introduced in the form of a manager’s amendment. Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had said during a committee meeting Thursday that those negotiations were in the “final stages” (CD April 4 p9). The committee appeared to still be “hashing out the fee-shifting language, the joinder provision that attaches to the fee-shifting, and the discovery reforms,” said Daniel Nazer, an Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney who focuses on patent revamp efforts. The committee has promised to release the language of the manager’s amendment and any other amendments up for debate well before the markup, meaning there’s a tight deadline for negotiations to conclude, Nazer said. A Monday posting of the manager’s amendment would be particularly problematic because it would be difficult for stakeholders to “digest a 60-page bill in a day,” said an industry lobbyist. The markup is set to begin at 2:30 p.m. in 106 Dirksen.