WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) on Tuesday praised the Senate’s successful 93-5 cloture vote on the House version of the America Invents Act, a comprehensive bill designed to update and streamline the patent system in the United States in order to stimulate investment, promote job creation, and increase competitiveness. The bill is expected to attain final passage later this week.

“American ingenuity has far outpaced American bureaucracy,” Senator Coons said. “The America Invents Act was designed to help restore American competitiveness and leadership in the global economy by modernizing the rules and practices that have prevented too many American inventors from becoming American entrepreneurs. Just as it was when the Senate originally passed the America Invents Act back in March, the bill was passed today with an overwhelming bipartisan majority. This is a good step forward — hopefully one of many — that the Senate will take this fall as we focus on addressing America’s jobs crisis.”

Senator Coons, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was an original cosponsor of the Senate version of the America Invents Act (S. 23), and aggressively and successfully worked for its passage on March 8th.

As many as 1.2 million patent applications await disposition by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with the average application taking almost three years and many applications taking much longer. The America Invents Act includes a suite of reforms that will make the patent system more efficient and successful in promoting American innovation.

  • The Act transitions the U.S. to a first-inventor-to-file system to simplify the application system and bring it into better alignment with our international trading partners.
  • The Act will strengthen patent quality by allowing third parties to submit prior art with explanations as to its relevance, adding unprecedented depth to the application review process.
  • The Act will also strengthen patent quality by introducing a “first window” post-grant opposition proceeding for challengers, helping weed-out patents that should not have been issued.
  • The Act will improve the process for challenging a patent before a panel of administrative patent judges while at the same time including procedural protections so that these challenges are not used for purposes of harassment.
  • The Act prevents patents from being issued on claims for tax strategies.
  • The Act provides more certainty in the calculation of damages for patent infringement.
  • The Act will allow the Patent and Trademark Office to set its own fees and will end the practice of fee-diversion, thereby ensuring that PTO has the resources need to produce high-quality patents in an expeditious manner.

“The America Invents Act will create jobs in Delaware and throughout the United States by removing some of the administrative roadblocks currently preventing inventors from becoming successful entrepreneurs,” Senator Coons said in remarks on the floor in March (http://bit.ly/nDjBqO). “This bill will improve the speed, quality and reliability of the Patent and Trademark Office and it will ensure that America retains its place in the world as the leader of invention and innovative thinking.”

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