COMPETE Act introduced in Senate: The return of anti-fee diversion and a possible funding mate for patent reform legislation

Senator Norm Coleman finally introduced the COMPETE Act (S. 1020) last week.  Title III of the bill is essentially the anti-fee diversion provisions of H.R. 1561 from the 108th Congress (The Patent and Trademark Fee Modernization Act), which were stripped out of that legislation when it was dumped into the Commerce-Justice-State (CJS) appropriations bill.

There was a little buzz about this bill earlier this year when Senator Coleman presented the draft legislation during a series of summits on American business competitiveness.  His comments on the draft legislation at that time are here.

The bill is not, at its heart, a patent reform bill.  Rather, its designed to steer various federal policies in an attempt to increase America’s competitiveness in technical fields.  The Patent Office funding issue is just one policy component.  Others include tax credits for research, development, and educational expenses.

Hitching the bill to the hot patent reform issue will increase its visibility, though, and the timing of its introduction takes advantage of the reform spotlight, which is shining quite brightly these days.  Indeed, the Intellectual Property Owner’s (IPO) Association has already expressed its support for the anti-fee diversion provisions of the bill.

As I’ve stated earlier, patent reform legislation is likely to be, ultimately, tied to Patent Office funding issues and probably the fee diversion issue.  So, for now, it makes sense to include the COMPETE Act in the patent reform realm.

The comments on the introduction of the bill, which include several letters offering support for the bill and the text of the proposed legislation, are in this .pdf.  I’ll provide a clean copy of the legislation once I get it.

The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Finance.