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In a boost to the US biotechnology industry, the House of Representatives last week approved a bill that would reverse the reduction in patent protection that companies say they are facing as a result of 1994 legislation that implemented the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT).

The bill, sponsored by Congressman Howard Coble, (Republican, North Carolina), passed by 376 votes to 43. It aims to mitigate the effects of a GATT provision that changed patent terms to 20 years from the date a patent application is filed. Patent protection was previously granted for 17 years from the date a patent was issued.

The biotechnology industry says the 1994 change shortened the terms of its patents, as biotechnology inventions usually take longer to win approval at the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) than other inventions, which take less than two years on average.

Under the bill — the American Inventors Protection Act — inventors would be compensated by having a day added to the patent term for each day over three years that it takes the PTO to grant a patent (providing that the delay is not the applicant's fault). This would effectively guarantee a 17-year patent term from the date a patent is issued.

Chuck Ludlam, the vice-president for government relations at the Biotechnology Industry Organization, says it is “an incredibly important provision” to restore patent terms “that otherwise would be eroded”.

The bill also requires the PTO to publish after 18 months any patent applications that are already published in other countries. Industry had lobbied for publication of all applications, not just those published abroad. It says that publication helps companies to avoid pursuing research and development in areas already staked out by others.

But independent inventors are opposed to this provision, arguing that companies might intimidate them or steal their inventions if they are published before patents are granted.

Although the bill has not been introduced in the Senate, Jeanne Lopatto, a spokeswoman for the judiciary committee, says that the committee's chairman, Senator Orrin Hatch (Republican, Utah), “is committed to patent reform” and will address the issue in Congress.

The bill does not address the issue of ‘first to file’ versus ‘first to invent’, which divides the countries of the European Commission from the United States (see Nature 397, 457; 1999). Some European countries were seeking a US shift on this in exchange for accepting a period of grace on patent applications in Europe.