Those sneaky Dems. "America Invents Act" (HR 1249/SB 23) Summary http://www.redstate.com/elronaldo/ When the Senate reconvenes in Washington one day after Labor Day – Sept. 6th – one of the first things Sen. Harry Reid wants to do is pass the so-called "America Invents Act" that President Obama wants to sign into law. This measure has aleady passed in the House as HR 1249, so the Senate is our last opportunity to stop this bill before it goes for Obama's signature and becomes law. But cleverly hidden in Section 18 of that bill is another Bank Bailout that kills jobs and costs taxpayers more than $1billion. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer snuck Section 18 in the patent bill at the 11th hour without a single public hearing to help his Wall Street Banker friends. Now, Sen. Harry Reid wants to make that Bank Bailout the law of the land. With Section 18, Congress gives Wall Street Banks a license to steal patents from our nation’s innovators who invent the technologies that create new jobs. Thursday, August 25th at 2:06PM EDT Just when you thought it was safe to glance away from Congress for a moment, another poisonous issue raises its ugly head in the Senate. And it’s on a very, very short fuse – September 6, to be exact, the very day the Senate returns from vacation. Yes, we were wrong to think that just because Congress is on vacation that we were safe to check in with how the kids feel about going back to school, or work on that sorry household budget, or enjoy the staycation. As if the administration and Congress had not soured the economy enough already, on the Senate’s very first day back in session, Harry Reid plans to make our challenged economy much, much worse. The “America Invents Act” is more poison for the US economy It’s known as ”patent reform” (HR 1249/SB 23) and it’s anything but reform with it’s current Section 18 intact. It’s a bald-faced sellout to Big Banking and Wall Street. There are several difficulties with the bill, but the one that jumps out at me is the fact that it’s simply a major job-killer. And for unconstitutionality, it’s a two-fer. Target: Hold and Amend Through the kind graces of Sen Tom Coburn (R OK) the Senate version of the bill is currently on hold, but that won’t last when Reid moves for cloture. We should vocally support Coburn in insisting that the bill be brought to the Senate floor in amendable fashion so Section 18 can be removed and the remaining act be given full public consideration, then passed. As noted above, time is short, and this is our last chance. The House version HR 1249 has already passed the US House. Section 18 is the poison pill Normally, when we speak of a poison pill, we think of an amendment to a bill that will prevent passage. In this case, the poison is for property rights and job creation in the US. Predictably, Sen. Chuck Schumer is the one who inserted the Section 18 language into the Senate version of the America Invents Act, and Harry Reid wants the Senate to pass the bill without knowing what’s in it, so he scheduled the bill to hit the floor in non-amendable fashion the day the Senate reconvenes. Section 18 applies only to the electronic payment processing industry* and it gives the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) the authority to revoke patents it has granted in the past. Under this measure, the USPTO can only reconsider patents that have been upheld in federal court when challenged. If the America Invents Act passes with Section 18 intact, then expect to see big banks and Wall Street challenge issuance of patents to inventors to whom they currently must pay royalties. There’s the pay-off for the banks and Wall Street: they get out of millions of dollars of royalties paid to inventors by getting Congress to confiscate the property rights of inventors and kill plenty of jobs in the process – after a court has confirmed the validity of the patent! How does Section 18 kill jobs? If inventive companies get their patents revoked by the USPTO, then those companies lose their royalty revenues and go out of business and the corresponding jobs disappear. But it gets much worse. Remember, this measure applies only to the electronic payment processing industry. Can you think of any companies that process payments electronically? Venture capitalists are simply balking now at investing in new companies with new payment technology because of Section 18. Those jobs may never appear, and are certainly being delayed. But many venture capitalists aren’t just balking at investing in new electronic payment companies, they are also hesitating to invest in any new company that will rely on electronic payment processing to receive a major portion of its revenues. When new companies don’t form, new jobs never appear. Then there are many established companies that will almost certainly be threatened in one way or another if patents are revoked simply because Wall Street wants them revoked. Paypal, for instance, holds at least 4 patents that I’m aware of. Oh yeah, then there’s that bothersome Constitution thing… As one might expect, Section 18 gives the bill some serious constitutional difficulty. First there’s the simple concept of property rights. The word “right” is used only once in the entire US Constitution. That’s in Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 8 granting powers to Congress: “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” Section 18 allows the USPTO to withdraw or void a patent, without due process, even if a high federal court has examined the patent, confirmed it, and ordered transgressors to pay the patent-holder damages for unlicensed use of the intellectual property. The second difficulty is the separation of powers issue (noted above) raised by allowing the executive branch to overrule the judicial branch. Section 18 does not simply allow for the possibility of violation of the separation of powers, it requires it in every case. The USPTO cannot consider a challenge to withdraw or void a patent unless that patent has already been challenged in court. Violation of property rights, absence of due process, and violation of separation of powers is non-trivial in my world. Politics is no predictor Curiously enough, politics is no predictor of the position a given member of Congress is likely to take on Section 18. Obama and Reid are for it, but Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and uberliberal Maxine Waters are against it. The best predictor of a politician’s position on this issue is to look at campaign contributions. You can figure that one out. So Libs,still think the Republicans are in bed with banks and Wall Street?And Americans wonder WHY we are broke and no jobs are being created?We need to throw these SpendoCrats out !
