Intense lobbying surrounding AIA highlights importance of changes to US patent system, report shows

Last September, President Obama signed into law the America Invents Act (AIA), a law that will bring about significant change in the US patent system for the first time in sixty years.

First Street Research Group, an organization that studies the forces influencing policy in Washington, recently released a report on the relationships and lobbying spending that surrounded the passage and implementation of the AIA.

The report shows that some 300 organizations lobbied the Act, both in the Senate and House. Together, these organizations spent over $400 million on all of their lobbying activity in 2011, an amount which suggests that an important segment of the entire lobbying industry was mobilized for the AIA. In fact, the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit research group, has valued the lobbying industry at $3.51 billion in 2010.

Over 1000 individual lobbyists lobbied the AIA, eleven of whom are former members of Congress. The top five organizations that lobbied the Act based on the number of lobbyists who lobbied the Act were: Independent Community Bankers of America, Security Industry and Financial Markets Association, AT&T, Yahoo!, Hewlett-Packard, and Research in Motion.