Congress is in the process of rewriting the United States' patent laws. Scientific and technological changes in virtually all markets have dramatically altered the patent system itself. Reacting to fears that patents and patent litigation could retard rather than support technological progress, legislators are poised to take action with the Patent Reform Act of 2007 (H. 1908, S. 1145). Proposed changes include the implementation of a first-to-file patent application process (in which the filing date of a patent application, and not the date of invention, determines which of any competing inventors will obtain a patent and when their rights begin), limitations on patent lawsuit damages, and the creation of an administrative patent review and mediation board.

The changes will have a profound impact on the nation's most creative and economically significant industries, from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry to the software and information technology sector. At this half-day conference, AEI scholars Claude Barfield and John E. Calfee will present their analysis of the role of patents in the biotechnology industry: Biotechnology and the Patent System: Balancing Innovation and Property Rights (AEI Press, September 2007). The authors will discuss the importance of patents in the development of new biotechnology drugs and diagnostic tests and the recent economic and legal thinking on the dynamics of patent law. Following the authors' presentation, panelists will debate whether biotechnology patents have undercut scientific research, as well as the provisions of the Patent Reform Act.

During the first panel, Ashish Arora, professor of economics and public policy at the Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University; Arnold & Porter partner Richard Johnson; and director of the Office of Technology Transfer at the National Institutes of Health Mark Rohrbaugh will discuss the patent system and biomedical research. AEI's John E. Calfee will moderate. Ted Frank, director of the newly established AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest, will moderate the second panel on the Patent Reform Act of 2007. The senior vice presidents and general counsels of Eli Lilly and Cisco, Robert Armitage and Mark Chandler, respectively, will join Mr. Frank, as well as Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck partner E. Anthony Figg, Andy Cadel, Managing Director and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel at JPMorgan and Bryan Lord, vice president of financing and licensing and general counsel of AmberWave.

For further information about the AEI Legal Center, including obtaining CLE credits, please visit www.aeilegalcenter.org.