Two weeks after an anti-patent-troll bill was introduced in the House, a different bill (PDF) on the same topic has been introduced in the Senate.

The new bill (overview, PDF) has one new thing that reformers wanted but didn't get in the House bill, which is a provision to allow the Federal Trade Commission to prosecute patent-holders who send out misleading threat letters. Some patent owners have sent out thousands of letters to small businesses in the past few years asking for patent royalties, a pattern that has raised the ire of many in Congress. Such patent owners were denounced as "bottom feeders" in a Senate subcommittee hearing earlier this month.

Anyone sending out letters in connection with patent demands that could "materially mislead" their recipients would be in violation of the FTC's ban on deceptive trade practices.

Meanwhile, the House's Goodlatte bill has dropped its most controversial measure: the expansion of the "covered business method" (CBM) patent review. Pro-patent-reform advocates wanted that provision to become law because it could let businesses challenge many patents for around $100,000—far less than fighting a case in federal court. Taking a patent case through trial there can cost between $1 million and $5 million.

While many Internet companies wanted to see the CBM program expanded, tech companies with big patent portfolios, including Microsoft and IBM, stood against the CBM.

But even the toned-down bill has caused a schism. About an hour ago, two key House Democrats, Reps. John Conyers (D-MI) and Mel Watt (D-NC), sent out a press release saying that they don't support the Goodlatte bill as it stands. "While we support measured and balanced changes to respond to the most egregious practices involving patents, we do not believe that this legislation should become a vehicle to pass far-ranging changes to the litigation system, such as limits on pleadings and discovery and intrusive mandates on the court system," stated the two Democrats. Conyers and Watt support the Senate's Leahy bill, however.

The Leahy bill doesn't include fee-shifting measures, but other parts of the two bills overlap. For example, both would force plaintiffs to be transparent about who owns a patent, and both would allow customer stays under certain circumstances.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade group dominated by big tech companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Apple, isn't too hot on the stay provision either. "The ‘customer stay’ language in the bill is a great start but needs to be crafted carefully to ensure bad actors can’t game the system," the BSA said in a statement. Despite this point of contention, the BSA supports the Leahy bill as a whole.

Update: This article originally stated that both the Leahy and Goodlatte bills lacked fee-shifting provisions. However, the Goodlatte bill's original fee-shifting provisions were not dropped when the document was amended. Ars regrets the error and has updated the text appropriately.