Congress will be in its Spring District Work Period (recess) from April 6-17. The UW Director of Federal Relations and Assistant Director of Federal Relations will be on campus for meetings April 13-17.
Category: General
Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Patent Reform Legislation
On Thursday April 2nd, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Patent Reform Act of 2009 (S. 515) by 15-4 vote after an agreement was reach on how to award damages in infringement cases. The bill establishes judges as the mechanism for deciding hwat evidence can be presented to juries in determining how to award damages. Additionally, the compromise addresses post-grant review of patents, in-equitable conduct by patent applicants and venue rules for patent infringement cases. The committee rejected an amendment offered by Senator Jon Jyl (R-AZ) to raise the threshold for patents to be challenged in a post-grant review process. According to Senator Dianne Feinsten (D-CA), the legislation “heals” the rift between large technology corporations and universities, manufacturers, and smaller technology companies. The actiontaken by the Senate Judiciary Committee has been endorsed by several national higher education association. Further work on the legislation in both chambers of Congress is required.
A full copy of the Senate Judiciary Committee legislation is available here.
Roll Call Releases State Delegation Rankings
The Roll Call newspaper, which is popular among DC politicos, recently released a ranking of the clout that the various state delegations hold in the 111th Congress. In determining the rankings, Roll Call staff assign points to each state based on several factors, including:
- size of the delegation
- number of full committee chairmen and ranking members
- number of Members on the most influential committees
- top leadership posts
- number of Members in the majority party
- per capita federal spending received
- seniority, and
- power rating of the opponents.
The state of Washington moved up one slot to 14 out of 50 for the current Congress. Washington made a dramatic jump in the ranking, from 30 to 15, after the 2006 election when the leadership of Congress changed parties. The top 3 states in the ranking have consistently included California, New York, and Texas -since the criteria utilized heavily favors large states. The Roll Call article, written with an admitted inspiration from the NCAA college basketball tournament, provides a colorful explanation of the ranking.
Office of Federal Relations Launches New Website and Blog
The Office of Federal Relations (OFR) is pleased to present a new website and blog, which will help increase the level of connectedness between campus and Washington, DC. The new website features links that will enable you to navigate the higher education associations, review background information on the legislative process, obtain current legislative information and federal agency alerts, as well as communicate with members of the OFR staff.