House Judiciary passes patent-reform bill

The House Judiciary Committee approved comprehensive patent-reform legislation on Thursday, sending the bill to the House floor by a vote of 32-3.

“This important legislation is long overdue. The last major patent reform was nearly 60 years ago," said House Judiciary chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who has worked closely with Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to usher the bill through Congress.

"Since then, American inventors have helped put a man on the moon, developed cell phones and launched the Internet. But we cannot protect the technologies of today with the tools of the past."

Like the legislation that overwhelmingly passed the Senate last month, the bill switches the United States to a first-to-file patent system and allows the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to keep the fees it collects in order to address the backlog of hundreds of thousands of patents. It also establishes a post-grant review process intended to weed out bad patents.

Leahy hailed the committee's passage of the bill by pointing to the broad coalition of support for patent-reform legislation, indicating a bill will likely find its way to President Obama's desk in the near future.

"Patent reform is an important key to our economic recovery and will help America invent its way back to prosperity," Leahy said. "Patent reform is supported by Democrats and Republicans alike, by the Obama administration and by businesses, industries and manufacturers across the spectrum."

A large range of tech firms has lined up to support the bill, including IBM, Microsoft and GE. The drug companies are also strong supporters of the legislation. But some small inventors have complained the changes will reduce their incentives for innovation by favoring large corporations.