In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

December 6, 2006.

Resolved, That the bill from the Senate (S. 1785) entitled ‘‘An Act to amend chapter 13 of title 17, United States 

Code (relating to the vessel hull design protection), to clarify 

the distinction between a hull and a deck, to provide factors 

for the determination of the protectability of a revised design, 

to provide guidance for assessments of substantial similarity, 

and for other purposes’’, do pass with the following

AMENDMENTS:

Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert:

1 SECTION 1. TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

2 The table of contents of this Act is as follows:

Sec. 1. Table of contents. 

TITLE I—VESSEL HULL DESIGN PROTECTION 

Sec. 101. Short title. 

Sec. 102. Designs protected. 

Sec. 103. Definitions. 

TITLE II—INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROVISIONS 

Sec. 201. Sense of Congress relating to Bayh-Dole Act. 

Sec. 202. Filing of applications for extensions of a patent term.
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1 TITLE I—VESSEL HULL DESIGN 

2 PROTECTION 

3 SEC. 101. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This title may be cited as the ‘‘Vessel Hull Design Pro5 tection Amendments of 2006’’. 

6 SEC. 102. DESIGNS PROTECTED. 

7 Section 1301(a) of title 17, United States Code, is 

8 amended by striking paragraph (2) and inserting the fol9 lowing: 

10 ‘‘(2) VESSEL FEATURES.—The design of a vessel 

11 hull or deck, including a plug or mold, is subject to 

12 protection under this chapter, notwithstanding section 

13 1302(4).’’. 

14 SEC. 103. DEFINITIONS. 

15 Section 1301(b) of title 17, United States Code, is 

16 amended—

17 (1) in paragraph (2), by striking ‘‘vessel hull, 

18 including a plug or mold,’’ and inserting ‘‘vessel hull 

19 or deck, including a plug or mold,’’; 

20 (2) by striking paragraph (4) and inserting the 

21 following: 

22 ‘‘(4) A ‘hull’ is the exterior frame or body of a 

23 vessel, exclusive of the deck, superstructure, masts, 

24 sails, yards, rigging, hardware, fixtures, and other at25 tachments.’’; and 
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1 (3) by adding at the end the following: 

2 ‘‘(7) A ‘deck’ is the horizontal surface of a vessel 

3 that covers the hull, including exterior cabin and 

4 cockpit surfaces, and exclusive of masts, sails, yards, 

5 rigging, hardware, fixtures, and other attachments.’’. 

6 TITLE II—INTELLECTUAL 

7 PROPERTY PROVISIONS 

8 SEC. 201. SENSE OF CONGRESS RELATING TO BAYH-DOLE 

9 ACT. 

10 (a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following: 

11 (1) Article I, section 8, clause 8, of the United 

12 States Constitution provides that Congress shall have 

13 the power ‘‘[t]o promote the Progress of Science and 

14 useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors 

15 and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective 

16 Writings and Discoveries’’. 

17 (2) The 96th Congress enacted Public Law 96–

18 517, entitled ‘‘An Act to amend the patent and trade19 mark laws’’ (commonly known as the ‘‘Bayh-Dole 

20 Act’’, in honor of its two lead sponsors in the Senate, 

21 the Honorable Birch Bayh and the Honorable Bob 

22 Dole), in 1980. 

23 (3) For 15 to 20 years before the enactment of 

24 the Bayh-Dole Act, Members of Congress considered, 
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1 discussed, and deliberated on the proper resolution of 

2 issues implicated by the Act. 

3 (4) Before the enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act, 

4 the United States was confronted by great economic 

5 uncertainty and presented with unprecedented new 

6 challenges from foreign industrial competition. 

7 (5) Before 1980, only 5 percent of patents owned 

8 by the Federal Government were used by the private 

9 sector—a situation that resulted in the American peo10 ple being denied the benefits of further development, 

11 disclosure, exploitation, and commercialization of the 

12 Government’s patent portfolio. 

13 (6) The Bayh-Dole Act established a ‘‘single, uni14 form national policy designed to . . . encourage pri15 vate industry to utilize government financed inven16 tions through the commitment of the risk capital nec17 essary to develop such inventions to the point of com18 mercial application’’, and eliminated the 26 different 

19 Federal agency policies that had existed regarding the 

20 use of the results of federally funded research and de21 velopment. 

22 (7) The Bayh-Dole Act fundamentally changed 

23 the Federal Government’s patent policies by enabling 

24 inventors or their employers to retain patent rights in 

25 inventions developed as part of federally funded re-
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1 search grants, thereby promoting licensing and the 

2 leveraging of contributions by the private sector to3 wards applied research, and facilitating the transfer 

4 of technology from the laboratory bench to the market5 place. 

6 (8) Examples of the tangible products and tech7 nologies that have resulted from the Bayh-Dole Act 

8 include, inter alia, an improved method for pre9 serving organs for transplant, a lithography system to 

10 enable the manufacture of nano-scale devices, the de11 velopment of new chemotherapeutic agents, the dis12 covery of new therapies for the treatment of patients 

13 diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and countless 

14 other advances in materials, electronics, energy, envi15 ronmental protection, and information technologies. 

16 (9) These new therapies, technologies, and inven17 tions, which have resulted from the collaborative envi18 ronment fostered by the Bayh-Dole Act, have directly 

19 contributed to the ability of medical researchers to 

20 discover and commercialize new treatments that al21 leviate patient suffering, enhance the ability of doc22 tors to diagnose and treat disease, and target prom23 ising new medical research. 

24 (10) The Bayh-Dole Act has stimulated two of 

25 the major contemporary scientific trends of the last 
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1 quarter century—the development of the biotechnology 

2 and information communications industries—and the 

3 Act is poised to continue playing a central role in 

4 new fields of innovative activities, including 

5 nanotechnology. 

6 (11) The Bayh-Dole Act has resulted in benefit7 ting taxpayers by generating millions of dollars in 

8 annual licensing royalties for universities and non9 profit institutions—revenues that are reinvested in 

10 furtherance of additional research and education pro11 grams. 

12 (12) The incentives provided under the Act and 

13 the exchange of technology and research between and 

14 among the research community, small businesses, and 

15 industry, have resulted in new cooperative ventures 

16 and the emergence of sophisticated high-technology 

17 businesses, which provide a major catalyst for innova18 tion and entrepreneurial activity. 

19 (13) More than 4,000 new companies have been 

20 created to develop and market academic research and 

21 development since 1980, and it is estimated that 

22 nearly 2300 of these companies were still in operation 

23 at the end of fiscal year 2003. 

24 (14) Lita Nelsen, director of the Technology Li25 censing Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
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1 nology, has described the Bayh-Dole Act as ‘‘one of the 

2 most successful pieces of economic development and 

3 job-creation legislation in recent history’’. 

4 (15) The Bayh-Dole Act was described in a 2002 

5 article in The Economist (US) as ‘‘[p]ossibly the most 

6 inspired piece of legislation to be enacted in America 

7 over the past half-century. . . . More than anything, 

8 this single policy measure helped to reverse America’s 

9 precipitous slide into industrial irrelevance’’. 

10 (16) The Government Accountability Office 

11 (GAO) found that university administrators and 

12 small business representatives considered the Bayh13 Dole Act to have had ‘‘a significant impact on their 

14 research and innovation efforts’’. 

15 (17) A study of business executives found that 9 

16 out of 10 identified the Bayh-Dole Act as an ‘‘impor17 tant factor’’ in decisions to fund research and devel18 opment in academia. 

19 (18) Howard Bremer, who served as patent 

20 counsel to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Founda21 tion from 1960 to 1988, once observed that, ‘‘[o]ne 

22 important factor . . . is that the success was achieved 

23 without cost to the taxpayer. In other words, no sepa24 rate appropriation of government funds was needed to 

25 establish or manage the effort’’. 
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1 (19) A 1998 GAO study found that the law had 

2 a positive impact on all involved and that the in3 creased commercialization of federally funded research 

4 that resulted from implementation of the Act had 

5 positively affected both the Federal Government and 

6 the American people. 

7 (20) The President’s Council of Advisors on 

8 Science and Technology reported to the President in 

9 May 2003 that the Act ‘‘dramatically improved the 

10 nation’s ability to move ideas from research and de11 velopment to the marketplace and into commerce’’ 

12 and that the system put in place for transferring tech13 nology from nonprofit institutions, which includes 

14 universities and Government laboratories, to the pri15 vate sector has worked well. 

16 (21) The Bayh-Dole Act states, ‘‘[i]t is the policy 

17 and objective of the Congress to promote the utiliza18 tion of inventions arising from federally-supported re19 search or development; . . . to promote collaboration 

20 between commercial concerns and nonprofit organiza21 tions, including universities; . . . to promote the com22 mercialization and public availability of inventions 

23 made in the United States by United States industry 

24 and labor; [and] to ensure that the Government ob25 tains sufficient rights in federally-supported inven-
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1 tions to meet the needs of the Government and protect 

2 the public against nonuse or unreasonable use of in3 ventions’’. 

4 (22) The Congress finds that the policies and ob5 jectives of the Bayh-Dole Act have been achieved and 

6 that the patent law has played a critical role in stim7 ulating technological advances and disclosing useful 

8 technical information to the public. 

9 (23) The Congress finds that federally-funded re10 search at universities and Government laboratories 

11 and the partnerships between such nonprofit institu12 tions and the private sector play a critical role in de13 veloping the technologies that allow the United States 

14 to lead the world in innovation. 

15 (24) The Bayh-Dole Act and its subsequent 

16 amendments, which include the Trademark Clarifica17 tion Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-620), have played a 

18 vital role in enabling the United States to become re19 nowned as the world leader in scientific research, in20 novation, ingenuity, and collaborative research that 

21 involves institutions of higher education and the pri22 vate sector. 

23 (b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Congress 

24 that—
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1 (1) the Bayh-Dole Act (Public Law 96–517) has 

2 made substantial contributions to the advancement of 

3 scientific and technological knowledge, fostered dra4 matic improvements in public health and safety, 

5 strengthened the higher education system in the 

6 United States, served as a catalyst for the develop7 ment of new domestic industries that have created 

8 tens of thousands of new jobs for American citizens, 

9 strengthened States and local communities across the 

10 country, and benefitted the economic and trade poli11 cies of the United States; and 

12 (2) it is appropriate that the Congress reaffirm 

13 its commitment to the policies and objectives of the 

14 Bayh-Dole Act by acknowledging its contributions 

15 and commemorating the silver anniversary of its en16 actment. 

17 SEC. 202. FILING OF APPLICATIONS FOR EXTENSIONS OF A 

18 PATENT TERM. 

19 (a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following: 

20 (1) The Congress historically has provided vig21 orous support for innovation in the useful arts by es22 tablishing a system of patent protection for products 

23 and processes. 

24 (2) Through section 156 of title 35, United 

25 States Code, the Congress sought to promote the devel-
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1 opment of innovative drugs by granting patent term 

2 restoration to companies to recover a portion of the 

3 patent term for such drugs that was consumed during 

4 the approval process conducted by the Food and Drug 

5 Administration. 

6 (3) Consistent with the historic purpose of pro7 moting innovation, patent legislation, and subsequent 

8 rules promulgated by the United States Patent and 

9 Trademark Office (PTO), have routinely given the 

10 PTO wide discretion to excuse late filings and other 

11 mistakes that might otherwise result in the forfeiture 

12 of underlying patent rights. 

13 (4) Contrary to this routine practice, however, 

14 under section 156 of title 35, United States Code, the 

15 PTO has no discretion to excuse a filing that is even 

16 one day late. 

17 (5) In order to be consistent with the intent of 

18 protecting patent rights and promoting further inno19 vation, the PTO should be granted limited, cir20 cumscribed discretion to consider patent term restora21 tion applications filed in an untimely manner. 

22 (b) FILING OF APPLICATIONS.—

23 (1) IN GENERAL.—Section 156 of title 35, 

24 United States Code, is amended by adding at the end 

25 the following new subsection: 
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1 ‘‘(i) UNINTENTIONAL DELAY.—The Director may ac2 cept an application under this section that is filed not later 

3 than 5 days after the expiration of the 60-day period pro4 vided in subsection (d)(1) if the applicant files a petition 

5 showing, to the satisfaction of the Director, that the delay 

6 in filing the application was unintentional. Such petition 

7 must be filed with the application in the case of an applica8 tion filed on or after the date of the enactment of this sub9 section and must be filed not later than 5 days after such 

10 date of enactment in the case of an application which, on 

11 such date of enactment, is pending, is the subject of a re12 quest for reconsideration of a denial of a patent term exten13 sion under this section, or has been denied a patent term 

14 extension under this section in a case in which the period 

15 for seeking reconsideration of such denial has not yet ex16 pired. The Director shall make a determination on a peti17 tion under this subsection not later than 30 days after the 

18 date on which the petition is received. If no determination 

19 has been made on the petition within that 30-day period, 

20 the petition shall be deemed to be denied.’’. 

21 (2) REVIVAL FEES.—Section 41(a)(7) of title 35, 

22 United States Code, is amended—

23 (A) by striking ‘‘or for an’’ and inserting 

24 ‘‘for an’’; and 
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1 (B) by inserting after ‘‘reexamination pro2 ceeding,’’ the following: ‘‘or for an unintention3 ally delayed application for patent term exten4 sion,’’. 

5 (3) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made 

6 by this section shall take effect on the date of the en7 actment of this Act, and shall apply to any applica8 tion for patent term extension under section 156 of 

9 title 35, United States Code, which—

10 (A) is filed on or after the date of the enact11 ment of this Act; or 

12 (B) on such date of enactment—

13 (i) is pending; 

14 (ii) is the subject of a request for recon15 sideration of a denial of a patent term ex16 tension under section 156; or 

17 (iii) has been denied a patent term ex18 tension under such section 156 in a case in 

19 which the period for seeking reconsideration 

20 of such denial has not yet expired.
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Amend the title so as to read ‘‘An Act to make certain improvements relating to intellectual property, and 

for other purposes.’’.

Attest:

Clerk. 
109TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. 1785

AMENDMENTS