WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - The new chairman of the U.S. House Intellectual Property Subcommittee says patent troll legislation is a top priority of his.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., was named the head of the subcommittee by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., last week.
The House overwhelmingly approved Goodlatte’s bill nearly a year ago. But efforts to pass the patent reform, and other, similar versions, came to a halt in the U.S. Senate in the spring.
“I am thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to work with Chairman Goodlatte, the subcommittee’s new vice chairman, Doug Collins, R-Ga., Ranking Member Nadler, D-N.Y., and the other members of the subcommittee on a subject matter where I have great passion: patents, the Internet and our nation’s framework for encouraging innovation,” Issa said Friday.
“As subcommittee chairman, my priorities include advancing a strong bipartisan bill to address abusive patent practices by ‘patent trolls’ which harm our economy’s real innovators and continuing needed oversight of the (U.S.) Patent & Trademark Office to ensure it is best prepared to address challenges for the 21st Century.
“I’m looking forward to starting the new year and working on the laws that allowed me to have success in my business before I came to Congress and sparked my interest in public policy and service.”
Before serving in Congress, Issa was CEO of California-based Directed Electronics, a company that he founded and built in the mid-1990s to become the nation’s largest manufacturer of vehicle anti-theft devices, including the highly-successful Viper system.
While heading up Directed Electronics, Issa also served as chairman of the Consumer Electronics Association, an organization of 2,000 companies within the consumer technology industry that hosts the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Issa, himself, holds 37 patents.
From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by email at patents@legalnewsline.com.