After a slight stall last week, the U.S. House of Representatives on September 7, 2007 passed the Patent Reform Act, HR 1908, with a vote of 220 to 175. On September 10, 2007, the Bill passed to the U.S. Senate for review where it is expected to undergo further debate and editing and result in a different version.

U.S. Patent Office data reveals that North Carolina ranked 15th out of 20 states named in the nation in the number of patents issued to the State’s residence during fiscal year 2006, ending September 30, 2006.

North Carolina residents were issued 2,172 patents during that period. California residents received the greatest number of patents, numbering 23,579, followed by Texas as the second with 6,345 residents obtaining patents.

The US Patent and Trademark Office has revised the Rules of practice in patent examinations in what it states is an attempt to make examination of patent applications in the Patent Office more effective and efficient. The Rule changes require a patent application to give justification for filing a continuing application for a third or subsequent continuing application. The justification will need to demonstrate why the amendment, argument or evidence could not have been submitted in the previously filed applications.

Patent applications having patentably indistinct claims may be required to be contained in one application unless good reason can be shown for the need for multiple copending applications.

Additionally, the Rules require that if an application contains more than five independent claims, or more than twenty-five total claims, the applicant must submit an examination support document covering all the claims.

The Rules changes shall be effective on November 1, 2007, and can impact applications already filed with the Patent Office.

In early 2000, General Technology Applications, a five-person research company from Virginia, sued Conoco Inc. for infringement on three of its patents. The patents were for petroleum additives, which a federal jury decided Conoco “willfully” infringed upon with its “Liquid Power” product.

GTA won $55.2 million in their intellectual property lawsuit. According to the Boston Business Journal, the law firm Weingarten, Schurgin, Gagnebin & Hayes LLP represented GTA on contingency.

As a small research firm with five employees, GTA’s president, Jerry Trippe, said it’s been difficult competing with industry giants.

“Everything we tried to do, we got into big companies’ territories,” he said in the Washington Post. “It was very hard to compete.”

Conoco merged with Phillips Petroleum Company on August 30, 2002, establishing ConocoPhillips. According to the new company’s Web site, ConocoPhillips employs 38,700 people and owns $173 billion in assets worldwide.