Monday, July 27, 2009

If Sessions can vote against Sotomayor, voting against patent reform is easy

Senator Jeff Sessions concluded a piece in USAToday on the nomination of Judge Sotomayor with the text:

I don't believe that Judge Sotomayor has the deep-rooted convictions necessary to resist the siren call of judicial activism. She has evoked its mantra too often. As someone who cares deeply about our great heritage of law, I must withhold my consent.

Along the way, Judge Sotomayor's attempt to rebrand her previously stated judicial approach was, as one editorial page opined, "uncomfortably close to disingenuous."

[Everyone understands Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed.]

Nevertheless, if Senator Sessions can vote against Judge Sotomayor this easily, voting against patent reform is a walk in the park. And, in the case of patent reform, not every Democrat is lined up.

In the House, in the 2007 vote, there were a few Democratic Congressmen (including one from Princeton) that voted thumbs down.

***See previous IPBiz post

Post-grant oppositions: another pothole in the road for patent reform?


***IPWatchDog noted: Patent reform has died this time, and given the contentious nature of the debate and the growing tensions in Congress I don’t see it returning this year, and maybe not even next year because the 2010 election will soon start, assuming it hasn’t already started.

Also: Why would we expect a new post-issuance review to work any better than the current prosecution process? Why are we to expect the Patent Office, who is certainly not equipped to handle litigation-like proceedings, could adequately and appropriately resolve issues of patentability in an adversarial proceeding? Why would anyone think this is a good idea? If a whole new division within the Patent Office needs to be created in order to handle these new post grant review proceedings that will take examiners away from other areas within the Patent Office, which will further lead to less examiner hours being spent on the backlog, which is a horrible way to attempt to move forward

See LBE's In Re: "Who You Gonna Call" by Chico Gholz, March 2007 to learn what the "opposition" proposal was really about. Note also that Chico Gholz never responded to LBE or to the points made.

***UPDATE as to Sotomayor.

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tn), voting "for" Sotomayor: "In the same way, it is my hope that my vote now not only will help to confirm a well-qualified nominee but will help to return the Senate to the practice, only recently lost, of inquiring diligently into qualifications of a nominee and then accepting that elections have consequences, one of which is to confer upon the president the constitutional right to nominate justices."

Think back to Bork as to "recently lost."

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