The House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property has scheduled an oversight hearing, Improving Federal Court Adjudication of Patent Cases, for Thursday, October 6, 2005 at 4:30 PM Eastern.
Is this a patent reform hearing?
Little information is available at this time — there is no agenda or witness list available yet. If it is a reform hearing, it’s probably safe to guess that the hearing will focus on the proposed litigation-based reforms, including elimination of the best mode requirement, modification and/or elimination of willfulness, and changes to the standard and process for inequitable conduct.
Considering the content of the draft amendment and the Coalition Print and the discussion from the last hearing, apportionment of damages may also be discussed.
I’ll post more as information becomes available.
You can view a live webcast of the hearing here.
IPO suggested that this October 6th hearing was to “explore options including patent specialist judges in trial courts” (see
“>http://www.ipo.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=20138).
Specialist patent judges are something we’ve had for many years here in the UK, and personally I would welcome it in the US. It would reduce the number of judgements that have to be reversed or remanded on appeal because the trial judge hasn’t understood patent law. It would also give greater certainty and might also reduce some of the costs of litigation.