Jeffrey H. Birnbaum writes on the mushrooming of lobbying in response to the proposed law reforming patents link here. He reports that on one side are the tech companies in the self-described Coalition for Patent Fairness (including Intel, Cisco Systems, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft and the maker of the BlackBerry, as well as Verizon and Time Warner) and on the other are the drug companies. The Coalition supports the provision to "limit damages for patent infringements to the actual component in question and not the entire product" while the drug companies want big damages as under the current system in order to make it too expensive to be sued when the case is weak or they don't have the financial resources.

Birnbaum reports that the Coalition feels it is about to win. He fails to address how this affects the rest of the proposed changes in the law not covered in the story. They are more important overall than this provision but may get lost in the wheeling and dealing or sacrificed in the final draft link here. Too bad. This is a truly awful way to make law that affects the welfare of every American consumer in what they pay for purchases and what is available in the market place, i.e.innovation.