BSA Urges House Leadership To Make Changes to Innovation Act

The Software Alliance (BSA) submitted a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Thursday calling for "certain changes and clarifications to be made" to the Innovation Act (HR-9) as the legislation is prepared for House consideration. In the letter, the BSA said HR-9 "represents a solid framework for much-needed reform to address the rampant abuses occurring in patent litigation," but suggests changes be made to strengthen pleading requirements, and to a provision concerning U.S. Patent and Trademark Office standards for interpretation of post-grant reviews. "The pleadings provision needs to be strengthened to require patentees to articulate their allegations of infringement for every claim being asserted," said the BSA in the letter. It also urged deleting a provision from the bill to "alter the current USPTO practice of using the broadest reasonable interpretation standard during all post-grant review challenges." CEA has said that HR-9 is expected to go to a floor vote in the House during the week of July 20 (see 1507080040).