Working for Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property is a driving force in our state and national economies.  Companies across Vermont rely on the protections afforded to intellectual property to be creative, productive, and profitable.  The theft of intellectual property and the presence of counterfeit products threaten not only economic interests, but also public health and safety.  Senator Leahy has been a leader in ensuring that enforcement mechanisms are in place to protect American intellectual property.

Enforcement and Protection.  Last year, Senator Leahy drafted legislation to help trademark owners maintain the protection of their brands and pushed to have it swiftly enacted.  This bipartisan law will also authorize the Director of the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to permit applicants to correct good faith and harmless errors, and will make several other technical amendments to our trademark laws.  Senator Leahy’s legislation also includes a requirement for the Department of Commerce to study whether large corporations are abusing trademark laws at the expense of small businesses by exaggerating the scope of their trademark protection.  Last year, Vermont’s Rock Art Brewery, a small micro-brewery in Morrisville encountered this kind of situation when they were threatened with legal action related to one of their trademarks.

Senator Leahy sponsored and secured Senate passage of the Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation (PIRATE) Act—legislation that would have strengthened enforcement of intellectual property rights.  Senator Leahy introduced and President Bush signed into law the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act, which, among other investigation and enforcement mechanisms, established a federal Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator.  Senator Leahy introduced and passed the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act Amendments of 2008, legislation that clarified and refined the 1998 Vessel Hull Design Protection Act, which granted intellectual property protections to ship designs.

Patent Reform.  The American patent system has played a key role in fostering innovation, but it has not been significantly updated in more than fifty years.  Senator Leahy has been a leader on legislation to reform the American patent system, and he has worked in particular over the last three Congresses to pass legislation that would significantly modernize the existing system in order to improve patent quality and reduce unnecessary litigation costs.

Senator Leahy was a cosponsor of the last two pieces of patent reform legislation to become law, the American Inventor's Protection Act of 1999 and the Cooperative Research and Technology Enhancements (CREATE) Act of 2004.  Since that time, he has worked to pass comprehensive patent reform legislation beginning with the introduction of the Patent Reform Act of 2006.  This piece of legislation has been modified and reintroduced in each of the subsequent Congresses.  One of its key changes would be to move the American patent system from a “first to invent” to a “first inventor to file” system, which will streamline patent applications and bring our system more in line with the practices of other industrialized nations.  This change will benefit small businesses and independent inventors, who often lose to large corporations under the current system when there are disputes about who invented first.  Senator Leahy will continue to press this important economic development bill until it becomes law. 

In June, Senator Leahy attended a conference in Burlington on patent and trademark issues hosted by Invent Vermont, a non-profit organization focused on promoting invention and innovation. 

Satellite Home Viewer Act.   Senator Leahy cosponsored and played a key role in the passage of the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act.  This legislation established for the first time a license that allowed for the retransmission of local broadcast content to local markets.  The new law allowed satellite carriers in Vermont to provide local Vermont broadcast stations to consumers in the Burlington market.  Satellite customers in Bennington and Windham Counties were unable to receive these stations, however, as they are part of the Albany and Boston markets, respectively.  Senator Leahy acted on behalf of these Vermonters by inserting special exceptions into the Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act that allowed satellite customers in the southern counties to receive Vermont broadcast stations by satellite, despite not being a part of the Burlington market.  This year, Senator Leahy led the effort in the Senate to get the Act reauthorized once again and was successful.  This new law will improve and preserve the television service that Vermonters are accustomed to receiving from both the satellite and cable industries.