From ZDnet, “House OKs revamp of patent system”:

Opponents criticized the bill’s sponsors for allowing too little time for discussion and too few amendments to the bill on the House floor. They alternately referred to process as a “nightmare,” a “horror story” and a “power play” by wealthy technology companies. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who led much of the floor rhetoric opposing the bill, dubbed it the “Steal American Technologies Act.”

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) said: “I’m opposed to this bill because it gives too much power to the big technology transnational companies.” She claimed that the major pro-patent bill lobbying coalition–backed by the likes of Adobe Systems, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Intel, eBay, Lenovo, Dell and Oracle–seeks an easy fix to the billions of patent damage awards they’ve been ordered to pay in recent years without changing “their obviously unfair and illegal business practices.”

Reservations also linger from the Bush administration and from groups like the Innovation Alliance, which represents Qualcomm and a number of smaller companies that depend on licensing technology, as well as from The Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, composed of about 40 large companies, including 3M, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Caterpillar, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Pfizer and Texas Instruments.