Political Quotes

“Section 14 of the bill, which has been before the Senate for the last week or more, prevents patenting of tax law. It provides that a strategy that relies on the tax law to reduce, to avoid, or to defer tax liability cannot be novel or nonobvious. So a strategy for reducing, avoiding, or deferring tax liability will be deemed insufficient to differentiate a claimed invention from the prior art for purposes of evaluating an invention under section 102 or section 103 of the bill that is before us. This ensures that taxpayers and their advisers will then be guaranteed equal access to the tax laws, and that is obviously the fair way to do it. It is the commonsense way to do it. So I wish to be clear that tax preparation software is not a tax strategy. Senior policy and examination staff from the Patent and Trademark Office agree that such software is not a tax strategy. I also have letters from H&R Block, KPMG LLP, and Grant Thornton that state that the underlying language does not impact their software patents. Again, I ask unanimous consent to have these letters printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: H&R Block, Washington, DC, February 10, 2011. Hon. Charles E. Grassley, Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Ranking Member Grassley, Our company has reviewed the language in Section 14 of the Patent Reform Act of 2011, now pending in Congress.…”