House passes overhaul of patent law
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The House on Friday endorsed the most significant changes in patent law in more than 50 years, sending to the Senate legislation that has divided the nation's business and innovation communities.
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The House voted Thursday to overhaul the housing voucher program, the federal government's largest effort to help low-income families find affordable housing.
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The House of Representatives on  Tuesday approved a sweeping overhaul of U.S. intelligence  agencies, ending weeks of wrangling over the Pentagon's power  under the reforms demanded after the Sept. 11 attacks.
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The House of Representatives easily passed a sweeping restructuring of the US intelligence community yesterday, removing the final obstacle to the most substantial overhaul of the nation&#39;s spy apparatus in 50 years.
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The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill to punish lawyers who file lawsuits deemed meritless by a judge, and bar them from shopping around for a sympathetic court.
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The House of Representatives on  Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a business-backed bill that  would tighten rules for federal review of foreign takeovers of  U.S. companies without discouraging such investments.
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The US House of Representatives approves a major financial package to stimulate the US economy.
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Companies on both sides of a patent overhaul debate in the U.S. Congress are stepping up the pressure on lawmakers, as some observers expect a vote soon in the Senate.Two groups, one supporting patent legislation before the Senate and one against it, held dueling media briefings on patent reform on Capitol Hill Thursday. Members of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, including lawyers from Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, and SAP, said they see broad support for the Patent Reform Act in the Senate and hope senators will soon&#160;follow the House of Representatives&#39; lead and pass the bill.The coalition sent a letter to Senate leaders Wednesday, calling on them to pass the Patent Reform Act. The bill will &quot;benefit all American workers and American consumers,&quot; said the letter, signed by 128 companies and organizations, including Amazon, Dell, eBay, and Intel.But another group, the Innovation Alliance, sent a letter to Senate leaders Tuesday urging them to reject the legislation.&quot;No compelling case has been made for a bill written in this fashion,&quot; read the Innovation Alliance letter, signed by 430 companies and organizations. &quot;It is based on claims of a crisis in the current patent system that does not exist, supported by selective assertions which do not hold up under scrutiny.&quot;Among the companies and organizations signing the Innovation Alliance letter were the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA, the NanoBusiness Alliance, Cargill, Coca-Cola, and Qualcomm.Both the House and Senate versions of the Patent Reform Act would overhaul the U.S. patent system, but two pieces of the legislation have generated the most controversy. The bills would create a new way to challenge patents after they&#39;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 courts to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece.Those changes would create uncertainty about the validity of patents and drive venture capital money away from innovative companies, said Joe Kiani, CEO of Masimo, a medical equipment vendor in Irvine, Calif.Combined with recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, including one limiting the use of injunctions by plaintiffs in patent infringement lawsuits, the Patent Reform Act would significantly decrease the value of many patents, argued Kiani and other participants in an Innovation Alliance forum.The bill &quot;opens the way for other countries like China to bring technology here that will be a fraction of the cost and will be copies of our technology,&quot; Kiani said.Panelists at the Innovation Alliance forum said they&#39;d support patent reform that gives more money to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), allowing examiners to better research patent applications. &quot;We support prudent patent reform,&quot; said Sean Murdock, executive director of the NanoBusiness Alliance, a trade group representing nanotech companies. &quot;Simply stated, the current bill, in its current form, is not prudent.&quot;But members of the Coalition for Patent Reform, in a press briefing a couple of hours later, said Congress needs to fix problems with &quot;patent speculators&quot; suing established companies. The Supreme Court rulings and more money for the USPTO aren&#39;t enough, said Tim Crean, chief intellectual property officer for SAP.In the past two years, the Supreme Court has ruled on several patent issues, including a case involving eBay. In May 2006, the court overturned a long-term U.S. court practice of issuing injunctions against infringing products in nearly all patent cases.Despite the Supreme Court rulings, the number of patent lawsuits continues to grow, said Crean and Michael Holston, general counsel for HP. This year is shaping up to be a record year for patent lawsuits, Holston said.The coalition found about 625 patent lawsuits in 20 selected U.S. district courts in 1990. Through Sept. 30, the same 20 courts have seen about 1,550 patent lawsuits in 2007, the coalition said.HP will spend about $75 million defending against patent lawsuits this year, Holston said. More than half of those lawsuits come from patent &quot;speculators&quot; -- companies that buy patents for the purpose of filing lawsuits, he added.The patent system is &quot;being exploited through litigation games,&quot; added Mark Chandler, general counsel for Cisco.
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What just last year generated legislative deadlock for a deeply divided Congress, has this year sailed through the House of Representatives after just a few hours of modest debate: H.R. 1908, the Patent Reform Act of 2007, has passed the House with at least some measure of bipartisan support.
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A House committee yesterday approved patent-reform legislation the technology sector has sought for years as a way to reduce the number of costly patent-infringement lawsuits.
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The House Committee on the Judiciary approved far-reaching legislation to reform the nation's patent system Wednesday.
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The House last night passed the most sweeping rewrite of corporate tax law in nearly two decades, a measure designed to end a nasty trade war with Europe and shower $136
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Legislation designed to overhaul the U.S. patent system was approved by the House Committee on the Judiciary.
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The House adopted a Republican-sponsored bill on Friday that would restructure the nation&#39;s intelligence community in response to the recommendations of the Sept.
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The 247-176 roll call Thursday by which the House passed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.
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Some of the rules changes approved Tuesday by the House at the opening of the 109th session of Congress:
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The US House of Representatives today solidly defeated the Marriage Protection Amendment, formerly the Federal Marriage Amendment.