As Expected: Trial Lawyers Made A Huge Miscalculation In Killing Recent Patent Reform

from the have-fun-guys dept

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Back in May, we wrote about how, despite pretty much everyone agreeing on a (decent, if not amazing) patent reform bill in the Senate, the whole thing got shot down at the last minute. That was when the trial lawyers called Senator Harry Reid, asking him to kill the whole thing , which he did by telling Senator Patrick Leahy that he wouldn't allow the bill to go to the floor for a vote. This came afterof detailed negotiations, getting nearly everyone into agreement on the bill, which would have made life at least somewhat more difficult for patent trolls. About a week after that, we pointed out that it seemed likely that the patent trolls had miscalculated badly , because it was widely expected that the Republicans would take control of the Senate in the fall (as they did), and they were more gungho on real patent reform and (obviously) not concerned with what trial lawyers think (mocking trial lawyers being a hobby of Republican politicians).And, indeed, that prediction appears to have been quite accurate. Senator Orrin Hatch -- who is seen as something of a copyright maximalist though apparently doesn't feel that way about patents -- went on the attack against patent trolls in a floor speech.Hatch doesn't mince words and flat out calls out the trial lawyers for killing the recent patent reform attempt. Furthermore, as Vox reports, other Republicans in the Senate appear eager to take on patent trolls , going even further than the legislation that was almost agreed to earlier this year. In fact, Hatch made it clear that he wants stronger fee-shifting in patent reform than what was in the last bill -- and that was the issue that most worried the trial lawyers. It was pretty obvious this was going to happen back in May. It's fairly incredible the trial lawyers (and Harry Reid) didn't recognize this at the time.Hatch's speech touched on a few other issues -- some good, some bad. He's pushing new federalized trade secret laws. This is abad idea, which we'll be discussing in more detail later. However, he also supports ECPA reform -- something that we've supported for years and has never gone anywhere in Congress. He brought up some other important issues, including immigration for high skilled workers. So the speech was definitely a mixed bag, but it had a lot of good points (unless you're a patent troll or a trial lawyer).

Filed Under: orrin hatch, patent reform, patent trolls, patents, trial lawyers