Moss Bill

When the first Moss Bill was filed, its provisions were studied by the American Chemical Society Committee on Economic Status and the Committee on Patent Matters and Related Legislation. One concern was whether an official ACS position on the bill should be presented to the governing congressional committee. The ACS bodies also felt that consideration should be given to the active involvement of ACS itself in developing a program for encouraging compensation to employed inventors. It soon became apparent to the members of the two ACS Committees that the issue was more complex than appeared, and a joint subcommittee was appointed to study the entire question in depth. This subcommittee, under my chairmanship, has been active since 1972, and it made a report to its parent committees in the fall of 1974 with recommendations for future action. 

It is possible that additional pressures may be needed to arrive at a satisfactory system, and some form of legislative backup may be desirable. Any law enacted, however, should be much simpler than either the German law or the Moss Bill. Such legislation should relate only to providing legal means to resolve otherwise unresolvable situations. It should not spell out in exhaustive detail the rights of the parties and the administrative procedures needed to implement these rights. 

Lassagne, T. H., Analysis and Critique of Moss Bill, HR. 15512, 91st Congress, Report to Committee 106, Inventors, of the Section of Patent, Trademark Copyright Law of the American Bar Association (1970). 

Moss, J. E., HR.5605, A Bill to Create a Comprehensive Federal System for Determining the Ownership of and Amount of Compensation to be Paid for Inventions Made by Employed Persons, Introduced into U.S. House of Representatives, 94th Congress, First Session, March 26, 1975. 

Nestle, Safe Food, 82 Michael Moss, The Burger that Shattered Her Life, NYT, October 4, 2009, at Ar Bill Tomson, U.S. Beef Safety Plan Languishes Amid New Illnesses, WSJ, July ro, 2009, at A5. 

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