High tech, biotech clashing on patent bill. "Stop reckless rush to overhaul patent system"

Biotech and high technology, two key Massachusetts industries, are often seen as allies — innovation-driven businesses that depend on a highly educated workforce. But this week they’re on opposite sides of a fight playing out in Washington: How to overhaul the nation’s patent system.

Both industries depend on patented inventions, but high-tech firms have been pushing for changes to lower the risk of expensive patent infringement lawsuits. And much of what they want is reflected in a bill making its way through Congress.

Biotech companies, however, argue that such changes would it make harder to protect new discoveries, and they are scrambling to blunt provisions they see as potentially damaging.

By Stephen Heuser, Globe Staff

Full Story: http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/07/19/high_tech_biotech_clashing_on_patent_bill/

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Stop reckless rush to overhaul patent system

By Kevin L. Kearns

Reform of the nation’s patent system, the 218-year-old wellspring of American innovation and material progress, has become a rush project in Congress. Leading the way is the Senate Judiciary Committee, with a bill that could cripple American innovation. Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, is trying to hustle his bill through committee, apparently to please several powerful information technology firms – even though testimony at the bill’s one hearing revealed serious flaws in the legislation.

Full Story: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.patents18jul18,0,2641305.story?track=rss

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A Patent Is Worth Having, Right? Well, Maybe Not

By MICHAEL FITZGERALD

PATENTS are supposed to give inventors an incentive to create things that spur economic growth. For some companies, especially in the pharmaceutical business, patents do just that by allowing them to pull in billions in profits from brand-name, blockbuster drugs. But for most public companies, patents don’t pay off, say a couple of researchers who have crunched the numbers.

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/business/yourmoney/15proto.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin