The U.S. Senate voted on Tuesday to strip controversial provisions out of a bipartisan bill to revamp the patent system and clear a years-long backlog of patent applications. The vote was 97 in favor and two opposed, Reuters reported.
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Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, with Patrick Leahy and Jon Kyl, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, proposed stripping from the bill a measure that gives judges a major role in determining how important a particular patent is to a product, so that infringing minor patents would not lead to huge damage awards.

They also took out a provision barring the practice of maneuvering to file patent infringement lawsuits in courts known to be friendly to plaintiffs.

On both issues, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which specializes in patent appeals, has issued rulings that go a long way toward ending the problem of juries in plaintiff-friendly districts giving outsized damage awards.

Leahy and other supporters of the bill are hoping for a vote on the legislation this week. There is as of yet no companion bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, but reform advocates expect the eventual House measure will be similar to the Senate bill.

David Kappos, the head of the patent office and a former International Business Machines Corp. vice president, addressed criticism of the bill from the high-technology sector, which initially pushed for a patent reform and now largely opposes it.

“As a person who came from the information technology industry … there are actually lots of good things for the tech industry (in the bill),” Kappos told reporters.