Innovation Act

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The H.R.9:Innovation Act was reintroduced on February 5, 2015, by Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). The bill was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary and Subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, and was placed on the Union Calendar on July 29, 2015. Currently the bill has 27 cosponsors, 15 Republicans and 12 Democrats.

The full title of the act is "To amend title 35, United States Code, and the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act to make improvements and technical corrections, and for other purposes." [1]GovTrack predicts that the Innovation Act has a 36% chance of being enacted. Representative Bob Goodlatte intends for the bill to cut down on abusive patent litigation and strengthen a patent holder's rights.[2]

The bill will target the following areas [2]:

  • Abusive Patent Litigation.
  • Increasing Transparency and reducing Weak Patent Infringement Claims.
  • Clarifying patent litigation procedures and practices.
  • Bolstering small businesses built upon IP.
  • Reducing referrals to random courts for the review of patent cases.
  • Weakening power of Patent Trolls.

Provisions

The provisions of the Innovation Act encompass all of the areas of reform currently in consideration by Congress.

Pleading Requirements

In efforts to diminish the Patent Troll threat, the Innovation Act has heightened pleading requirements for parties filing for patent infringement. As of December 2015, Form 18, the form previously used to submit generalized patent infringement claims [3], was eliminated in order to reduce patent litigation, especially involving Patent Trolls or Non-Practicing Entities.[4] The act would go further in reducing generalized complaints and eliminating loopholes by requiring (with exceptions) the plaintiff to submit infringement charts with the initial complaint.[5] The purpose of the charts would be to force the plaintiff to explain the specifics of a claim, how a product or subsidiary company violates each infringed component of a patent and the scope of each component's infringement. Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag [2] [3]

[4]

  1. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named GovTrack
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 [1] 'The Innovation Act', Judiciary Committee: Chairman Bob Goodlatte, (Washington, D.C.).
  3. 3.0 3.1 [2] L. Morad and A.J. Bramhall, 'An Early Review of the Impact of Form 18's Elimination on Pleading Direct Infringement',PatentlyO.
  4. 4.0 4.1 [3] Jura Zibas and Gregory Brescia, 'Supreme Court Adopts Amendments to Federal Rules', The National Law Review, (Western Springs, IL).
  5. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named patentlyoIA