The Senate on Monday will begin debating a bill that critics say will undermine American strength abroad, plunder the United States economy and exceed the government's constitutional authority.

The subject: patent reform.

Rarely has the Patent and Trademark Office elicited such passions. But included in the bill is a long-debated feature that would change the federal patent system to a “first to file” protocol of determining patent priority — one used by nearly all of the rest of the world — from its current “first to invent” system.

“This bill would be death to innovation in America,” said Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative writer and activist who has rallied opposition to the bill among conservative groups like the Gun Owners of America and the Christian Coalition.

Those groups have joined in opposition with small-business advocates and groups of professional engineers, who say that the change would favor big corporations over small inventors and make it harder for start-ups to ward off people seeking to steal their ideas.

Read the complete New York Times story, “Senators to Debate Patent Bill.”

The Senate on Monday will begin debating a bill that critics say will undermine American strength abroad, plunder the United States economy and exceed the government's constitutional authority.

The subject: patent reform.

Rarely has the Patent and Trademark Office elicited such passions. But included in the bill is a long-debated feature that would change the federal patent system to a “first to file” protocol of determining patent priority — one used by nearly all of the rest of the world — from its current “first to invent” system.

“This bill would be death to innovation in America,” said Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative writer and activist who has rallied opposition to the bill among conservative groups like the Gun Owners of America and the Christian Coalition.

Those groups have joined in opposition with small-business advocates and groups of professional engineers, who say that the change would favor big corporations over small inventors and make it harder for start-ups to ward off people seeking to steal their ideas.

Read the complete New York Times story, “Senators to Debate Patent Bill.”