Today, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) participated in a bipartisan online Google Hangout to discuss their concerns with patent legislation (S. 1137 and H.R. 9) currently under consideration in Congress. Patent expert Gene Quinn moderated the discussion and the members took questions from online viewers via Twitter.
Coons and Massie have led opposition to H.R. 9, titled the Innovation Act, and S. 1137, the Patent Act, including holding a joint bicameral press conference in July to highlight the broad opposition to both bills. H.R. 9 was originally scheduled for a vote this summer but has been delayed because of strong opposition from inventors, small businesses, venture capitalists, startup communities, as well as manufacturing, technology, and life sciences companies.
Coons is the author of targeted patent legislation, STRONG Patents Act, that would make it harder for firms to be targeted with frivolous patent lawsuits, level the playing field between small inventors and large companies, and ensure the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has the resources it needs to ensure patent quality. STRONG Patents Act is co-sponsored by U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), David Vitter (R-La.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
"Today's event was an important opportunity to continue to shine a light on why these two bills would be destructive to our innovation economy," said Senator Chris Coons. "A strong patent system is one of the critical ways we distinguish ourselves from competing economies around the world, and we cannot afford to rush into passing a bill that would further weaken our innovation economy, which is exactly what both H.R. 9 and S. 1137 would do by making overbroad changes that fail to protect all patent holders. Representative Massie and I have been leading the charge to make sure our colleagues in both the House and the Senate know exactly why a wide spectrum of stakeholders, from universities to life saving drug manufacturers, oppose these bills, and we will continue to work to ensure overreaching patent legislation does not become law."
"As a small inventor with 29 U.S. patents, I oppose H.R. 9 and S. 1137 because they threaten American inventors, particularly individual inventors and those working at small businesses and startups," said Representative Massie. "Everything these bills do to so-called patent trolls they also do to legitimate inventors. In Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution, the Founding Fathers (some of whom were inventors themselves), gave Congress the authority to protect the discoveries of inventors. Inventors rely on this protection as they create new products. Without the strong congressional protection mandated by our Constitution, inventors and the investors who back them will lose confidence that their work and ideas will be safeguarded. This loss of confidence will cause invention and investment to wither, hurting our economy. Senator Coons and I will continue to fight to protect small inventors and their constitutional intellectual property rights that have helped make our nation the most prosperous on Earth."