District Plans Water Restrictions
Last week, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California(MWD) announced that it will restrict water deliveries to the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) by 13 percent beginning July 1. SDCWA will determine this week the percentage that all 24 member retail water agencies will need to reduce and if cities in the region need to enact a Level 2 Drought Alert condition, so that they may enforce water use restrictions on their customers. SDCWA expects that reductions to water agencies will be lower than the MWD’s allocation percentage because they have worked to diversify the region’s water supply via water storage, transfers and supply.
However, our water supply is still in a critical state and we all need to continue to look for ways to reduce our water consumption. Under the Level 2 Drought Alert, water use reductions will become mandatory and include limitations on landscape irrigation to certain days, limiting residential and commercial watering to early morning or late evening hours, repairing leaks, and not washing down driveways and sidewalks. The City of SanDiego is looking at creating an irrigation water schedule for residents and commercial users. Taking business hours into account, commercial users would be limited to watering Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If this irrigation schedule would somehow negatively impact your company, please contact Faith Picking at fpicking@biocom.org.
Discussions will be ongoing on planning in the event the drought continues into the future, and BIOCOM will continue to be a leader in these discussions.
For a full list of the Level 2 restrictions, please visit: www.sdcwa.org/manage/droughtordinance.phtml#alert
To learn more about ways to conserve, please visit:
City of San Diego’s water website: http://www.sandiego.gov/water/conservation/drought/index.shtml
San Diego County Water Authority: http://www.sdcwa.org/manage/conservation.phtml
Comparative Effectiveness Bill Defeated
In the first major test of the life science industry of the young legislative year, Senate Bill (SB) 341 was defeated last week in the Senate Health Committee 5-4, with 7 votes needed for passage. SB 341 would have set up a California-specific comparative effectiveness system funded by manufacturers, a program that would be inadvisable in most years and is laughable in the midst of an historic budget deficit. This bill came just months after over a billion dollars was allocated at the federal level for comparative effectiveness research. This bill would have been duplicative and would share little new and original material with consumers.
Information on this bill can be found at this link http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/sen/sb_0301-0350/sb_341_bill_20090331_amended_sen_v98.html
As always, please check the public Policy section of the website to keep current on bills of interest to BIOCOM members.
ARRA Grants Available
Interested to know how you can get involved with the ARRA?
American Recovery & Reinvestment Act may be of interest to BIOCOM member companies. Please note that there are aggressive deadlines attached to some of the programs. However, updates will be sent to us periodically on other grant opportunities under ARRA.
All in all, California stands to receive $85 billion during the next couple of years. Other regions in the state will also be aggressively pursuing these pots of funding. The Senator wants to make sure that San Diego, Imperial County and East Riverside gets their fair share.
Please use the following link for more information on how you can apply for these grants. https://biocom.org/?m=sp_view_doc&file=Shared%20Documents/Public%20Policy/ARRA_Local_Grants_4-17-09.pdf
Patent Reform Amendment Approved
On April 2, 2009 a compromise amendment to the Patent Reform Act of 2009 was approved with a 15-4 vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The compromise was part of an agreement between Chairman Leahy, Senator Feinstein and ranking member Senator Specter. BIOCOM is supportive of the amendments related to post-grant review and damages. Several key issues that were amended on April 2nd include:
• Post-grant review procedure- Prior use and sale provisions have been removed;
• Damages- The standard for finding willful infringement would be codified;
• Gatekeeper Language- Provisions that would make the district judge a gatekeeper who would instruct the jury regarding the methodologies and factors that have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis;
• A pilot program that directs patent cases to judges have judicial expertise and/or interest in patent litigation.
A redline amended copy of the amended bill can be found here.
Chairman Leahy indicated discussions will continue before the bill is debated on the Senate floor, particularly surrounding inequitable conduct and discussions with the PTO regarding the workability of the bill's amended provisions.
Without the assurance of strong patent protection, innovators and investors in biotech, cleantech, greentech, and other sectors will lack the incentive and ability to move forward with their inventions. BIOCOM urges members who care about patent reform to continue voicing your concerns and write your senators and congress members. Click here for a copy of BIOCOM letters. (PDF).
IP Update: More About Patent Reform
Blessed are the gatekeepers.
As we previously reported, patent reform legislation has been re-introduced in both the House and the Senate. Since the House actually passed a patent reform bill during the last session of Congress, only to see the patent reform effort die in the Senate, this time the House took a “you go first” stance — and the Senate committee actually did! One of the more contentious provisions of the originally drafted bill related to calculation of damages. A majority of committee members recently reached a compromise on this provision by deleting the new requirement to have courts look to the invention's "specific contribution over the prior art" to determine damages, instead, adding to the existing method of determining damages a gatekeeper provision that would allow parties to argue to the judge what evidence is legally sufficient to determine damages. While there are concerns about giving judges more authority to determine how to assess damages, most parties agree that it ispreferable to the open-ended way damages can be argued currently. Many organizations, including BIO, applauded the compromise as an indication that all parties can be heard regarding their interests in patent reform.
The revised bill then quickly emerged from committee to the full Senate. Leahy (D-VT) and Senators Feinstein(D-CA) and Specter (R-PA) were credited with facilitating the rapid passage. Not all members of the committee were happy with the result, though. Senator Kyl (R-AZ) has urged further amendments to the bill; and Senator Hatch (R-UT), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, believed that there was not enough in the bill to “improve patent quality and limit unnecessary and unproductive litigation costs.” Many thought that more committee debate was warranted. The members supporting passage from committee believed it was necessary to move quickly to make sure it did not die there and that “details” can be changed before it goes to a floor vote. Therefore, we can expect more tinkering before a final vote on the bill.
Submitted by BIOCOM's Intellectual Property Committee, by Les Overman with Stephen Reiter and Bernie Greenspan. The opinions expressed herein are those of the contributors and not their respective employers.
Please send your comments or suggestions to BiocomIP@gmail.com.