Washington, D.C.

House bill seeks to speed patent process

The House voted Wednesday to raise patent fees, agreeing that the additional dollars were needed to save the overburdened Patent and Trademark Office and ensure that U.S. innovators are not stymied.

The legislation raises most patent fees by about 15 percent. It also takes steps to end the practice of sending that money into the general Treasury fund instead of using it for patent and trademark processing.

The bill passed by a 379-28 vote. It now must be considered by the Senate.

South Carolina

Detainee sees lawyers after two years’ wait

Jose Padilla, the American arrested in an alleged al-Qaida plot to set off a radioactive “dirty bomb,” was allowed to meet with lawyers Wednesday for the first time in nearly two years.

The U.S. government has designated Padilla an “enemy combatant,” meaning he can be held indefinitely without access to lawyers. But the government relented last month, just days before the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear his case.

The FBI arrested Padilla, a former gang member from Chicago and a convert to Islam, in May 2002 as he returned from a trip to Pakistan.

Officials allege that Padilla, working under a senior al-Qaida operative, was plotting to detonate a bomb that would scatter radioactive material in the United States.