CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
June 20, 2011 – 8:29 p.m.
GOP Reaches Patent Fee Agreement
By Keith Perine, CQ Staff
Top House Republicans have struck a deal among themselves on fee provisions in a patent law overhaul bill, though it remains unclear whether they have enough support to pass the measure this week.
The legislation, part of the House GOP’s jobs agenda, has been stalled in a disagreement among Republicans about provisions that would allow the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to keep and spend all the revenue it collects in fees.
GOP lawmakers on Monday reached a compromise that would allow appropriators to keep control of patent office funding. Under the arrangement, patent office funding would still be provided through appropriations. Excess revenue from the patent office would be put into an account for patent office use through further appropriations.
The compromise — engineered by Judiciary Chairman
A similar Senate-passed bill (
The Obama administration also has been pushing lawmakers to let the patent office keep all its revenue. The office, which is struggling with a backlog of applications, generates more money every year in fees than it receives in appropriations. And the office would be given several new responsibilities under other provisions of the overhaul bill.
The Rules Committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday afternoon to write a rule for a floor debate on the bill that is expected this week.
The bill, sponsored in the House by Smith, won Judiciary panel approval in April by a vote of 32-3. But Rogers and Budget Chairman
Even before Republicans issued their compromise language on Monday, interest groups on both sides of the overhaul effort had stepped up their last-minute lobbying.
A bevy of private sector organizations, including the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, was on Capitol Hill on Monday pressing for passage of the legislation.
Gary Griswold, a spokesman for the coalition, which includes big pharmaceutical and manufacturing corporations, said the measure is “a very important bill for the economics of the country.”
Other private sector stakeholders are at work on a letter opposing the removal of provisions that would ensure the patent office could keep its fees. The Innovation Alliance, a coalition of technology companies, issued a statement of opposition Monday.
“The Innovation Alliance is greatly disappointed by reports that some in the House of Representatives have chosen to remove language . . . that would have permanently ended fee diversion,” said Brian Pomper, the coalition’s executive director, in a written statement. “In its stead is language that amounts to a promise to end fee diversion in the future, a promise that has repeatedly been broken in the past.”
GOP Reaches Patent Fee Agreement
Bill supporters will also have to overcome bipartisan opposition to the bill because of several other provisions, including language that would allow banks to challenge patents on business methods related to financial products or services.