It would be “great” to abolish the U.S....

Policy Studies. Another “modest possibility,” he said, is to require that decisions whether infringement has occurred be made by a court, but then allow a victorious plaintiff to seek an import ban from the ITC. That proposal was considered by the U.S. Trade Representative decades ago but rejected by Congress, wrote Watson in a blog post Monday (http://bit.ly/17U5VZX). “But if federal courts are making infringement determinations, why not just give those courts the power to issue import bans?” The “most common argument in favor of ITC patent litigation is that the agency is quick and effective at making infringement determinations,” he continued. “Without that role, is there really anything left for the ITC?” Watson said it’s “quite likely,” given the Supreme Court’s clear warning regarding overuse of injunctions in patent infringement cases, that there will be an attempt through regulation or statute to create more precise rules for determining the basis for import bans in patent infringement cases. The White House also has said the ITC should follow the same standard as federal courts before issuing an import ban. A commission spokeswoman declined to comment on Watson’s blog post. “Maybe the trouble caused by the ITC would be worthwhile if the agency also provided some legitimate benefit, but it doesn’t,” Watson said: “No other country on earth has a specialized patent court for imports,” and “ITC import bans were condemned decades ago as inconsistent with international trade rules. Patent policy is complicated enough without the ITC’s purely disruptive influence.”