When renowned hedge fund manager Kyle Bass announced in January that he would challenge the validity of several pharmaceutical patents by using the post-grant proceedings created by Congress under the America Invents Act, the pharmaceutical industry cried foul. Bass, it said, was exploiting the system in a manner never intended: for his personal financial gain.

Now in response, the pharmaceutical, life sciences and biotech industries are using Bass' actions to redirect the focus of Congress' current patent reform debate to make it less about patent trolls and more about those post-grant proceedings, which have been used with success to invalidate weak patents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) for almost three years.

At a hearing earlier this month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the deputy general counsel for a pharmaceutical company told the lawmakers his industry would support a patent reform bill as long as they add provisions that address issues concerning inter partes review and other post-grant proceedings at the PTAB.