The U.S. Department of Commerce issued a statement to Congress opposing the recent Patent Reform Act because of a section regarding infringement damages. “Unless the provisions limiting inventors' rights to obtain damages are significantly revised, the Administration believes the resulting harm to the U.S. intellectual property system would outweigh the bill's many useful reforms. We believe that the damages language in the bill's current version is unacceptable and will have a negative impact on most patentable innovation.” Specifically, the group objects to Section 4 of S. 1145 which limits the discretion of Federal courts to determine how damages are calculated to compensate a patent holder for patent infringement.

The Administration believes that such a dramatic change from current jurisprudence may have the unintended consequence of reducing the rewards of innovation and encouraging patent infringement. “The U.S. patent system must preserve the incentive to innovate and continue to offer innovators the opportunity to be adequately compensated and recover their investments. Across all industries, most innovations are built on existing innovations. The bill as written would undervalue such improvements,” the report states.