The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Patent Act of 2015 (Protecting American Talent and Entrepreneurship Act) as amended by the Manager’s Amendment as well as additions from Senators Feinstein and Cornyn. The vote was 16-4 with only Senators Cruz, Vitter, Durbin, and Coons voting Nay. Yeas include Senators Grassley, Hatch, Sessions, Graham, Cornyn, Lee, Flake, Perdue, Tillis, Leahy, Feinstein, Schumer, Whitehouse, Klobuchar, Franken, and Blumenthal.
We can expect a few more amendments before being passed in the Senate. Notably, there is continued debate over whether to alter the statute to force the PTO to more liberally allow claim amendments during post-grant proceedings.
[Update] In the original version of this post, I mistakenly wrote that universities are pushing to have their patents excluded from post grant proceedings. That was in error, the move rather is from the pharma and life science tech sector to exclude patents “that are subject to the Hatch-Waxman Act and Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA) processes.” [Link to Grassley Statement]