David Kappos sees patent reform legislation as an absolute…at least as far as the application backlog goes.

The Senate Judiciary Committee gave us a watershed moment in the patent reform movement when, last week, it approved an amended version of the Patent Reform Act of 2009. The Committee’s action is a significant step toward enactment of comprehensive patent reform, particularly because it represents a compromise amongst major stakeholders on the controversial damages provision that has, for some time, played spoiler for the legislation. Despite this significant development, the Patent Reform Act of 2009 is going nowhere in the foreseeable future.

View and/or download a .pdf of the Patent Reform Act of 2009 as reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Fueled by an agreement between the competing camps, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted last week to pass the Patent Reform Act of 2009 to the full Senate for debate. The Committee adopted a manager’s amendment that embodies the changes required by the agreement. Download a .pdf redline version of the bill, as amended and passed by the Committee, after the jump.

In a committee meeting led forcefully by Chairman Leahy, the Senate Judiciary Committee today voted to pass the Patent Reform Act of 2009 to the whole Senate. The Committee adopted the proposed manager’s amendment that modifies the damages and interlocutory appeals provisions, and voted against several other amendments. While the Committee successfully moved the bill to the full Senate, today’s hearing makes it clear that many more proposed amendments loom. Senate debate will likely be very intense.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to meet again today to continue its consideration of S.515, The Patent Reform Act of 2009. Several amendments to the Act have been proposed and will be considered, including changes to the progress-blocking damages provision, the interlocutory appeals provision, and various other changes.

Google appears set to play a leading role in the latest push for passage of patent reform legislation. There are two things about the company that we should all keep in mind when assigning weight to the company’s calls for reform.

Both the House (H.R. 1260) and Senate (S.515) versions of the Patent Reform Act of 2009 include a provision that would extend the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to include claim construction orders issued by district courts. While not the most controversial, this has to be one of the Act’s most extreme provisions. The potential effect of such a change is quite drastic – a whole new patent backlog at the Federal Circuit. As such, this reform is a short-sighted, duct-tape solution that shows a lack of concern for the patent law as a whole.

At today’s Sughrue Syposium on IP Law and Policy at the University of Akron, a star-studded panel was asked to rank “the likelihood that the 111th Congress will pass patent reform legislation” on a scale from 1 (no chance) to 10 (guaranteed). Here are their votes.

The full Senate Judiciary Committee has quickly scheduled a hearing on patent reform. Tomorrow at 10AM, the Committee will hold “Patent Reform in the 111th Congress: Legislation and Recent Court Decisions,” the first reform hearing for the 111th Congress.