Senate Adopts Senator Leahy's Amendment to Patent Reform Bill S.23

We have been posting over the past few weeks about developments in Congress' effort to reform the Patent Act. On March 2, the Senate debated the full legislative reform bill (S.23) and Senator Leahy's Manager's Amendment, which has been the subject of previous posts. The Manager's Amendment codifies a gatekeeping role for district courts but does not include the detailed provisions on entire market value rule and apportionment that previous bills contained. The Senate passed the Manager's Amendment by a landslide vote of 97-2.

For a comprehensive analysis of legislative damages reform, and for links to the Congressional patent reform bills, including the Manager's Amendment, you can take a look at Fish & Richardson's legislative reform web page that's specific to patent damages: http://www.fr.com/legislativereform/Generic.aspx.