In-house counsel from five companies, Qualcomm Inc., IBM Corp., Nokia Corp., InterDigital Inc. and The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC, weighed in on proposed changes to patent eligibility at a Senate hearing Tuesday.

It was the final hearing in a Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Intellectual Property series on ”The State of Patent Eligibility in America,” sparked by a draft bill released in May that aims to clarify patent eligibility law and provide greater assurances for U.S. innovators that their inventions will be protected without fueling opportunities for patent trolls.

IBM chief patent counsel Manny Schecter backed the changes to Section 101 Tuesday, adding that the current “law of subject matter eligibility is a mess that no one can understand.” He said the lack of certainty around securing patents can harm in-house counsel, especially when it comes to advising on IP strategy for advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence.

“It's actually a bit of an embarrassment to advise business clients who look at you and scratch their heads and occasionally wonder whether they can trust what you're saying. In my view it actually is a blot on the integrity of the patent system,” he said.

InterDigital vice president and head of licensing strategy and operations Kim Chotkowski,  Qualcomm senior vice president and counsel of government affairs Laurie Self, and Nokia senior intellectual property rights licensing counsel Byron Holz also expressed support for the draft bill's proposed amendments to Section 101.

Self said Section 101 has “become an impediment” to wireless telecommunications company Qualcomm's innovation and the proposed changes “would allow companies to innovate with insurance that patents won't be denied.”

“If we cannot obtain patent protection under 101 for [cellular communication] technologies we really are undercutting our ability to lead in this space,” Self said. “And I think it's also critical to keep in mind that in China … parts of Europe, we are not seeing the same impediment.”

Draft bill co-author Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Delaware, said concerns over “the race to 5G” between the U.S. and China was a main reason for his patent reform push. Holz and Schecter both claimed current patent law could dissuade companies from collaborating to drive U.S. innovation.

Despite tech industry witnesses' support for changes to Section 101, Sean Reilly, The Clearing House Payments Co.'s senior vice president and associate general counsel, was opposed. He said Section 101 in its current state has reduced the number of low quality patents and saved litigation costs, “leveling the playing field” for smaller companies.

Coons, co-author Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, were the only senators to attend the first panel of Tuesday's hearing. Alphabet Inc., Apple Inc. and Oracle Corp. were invited to testify, Tillis said, but declined to attend, deferring to an industry representative.