The most sweeping effort to reform the U.S. patent system in 50 years will have to wait a little longer.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., withdrew a vote on the bill from the calendar May 2, essentially postponing it until 2009, analysts said.

Local patent attorneys and leaders in the biotechnology, high-tech, pharmaceutical and medical device industries have monitored the legislation’s progress, known as the Patent Reform Act of 2007, since first introduced last April.

Put simply, the patent reform bill would make patents harder to obtain, easier to challenge and more difficult for patent holders to collect damages in infringement lawsuits.

It would award patents to individuals who file first, instead of those who invent first, aligning practices in the United States with the rest of the world.

The bill has stalled since it passed the House in September, mostly due to conflicting interests and pressures on lawmakers to come up with language that satisfies both sides, particularly big pharma and biotech firms that favor strict patent protection and high-tech firms that favor more rapid speed-to-market. Similar legislation failed to pass in the previous session of Congress.

Although forecasts for the bill’s passage have dimmed, observers said it’s not yet dead.

“Because we’re coming up on an election, I would guess there’s going to be a patent reform act of 2009 perhaps,” said John Phillips, managing principal of the San Diego office of Fish & Richardson who represents clients in the high-tech and medical device industries.

Language Conflict

Before then, analysts said a few key provisions will likely be revised.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said May 6 that the bill is unlikely to return to the calendar unless the Senate Judiciary Committee agrees on language concerning how damages are awarded.

The ability to collect damages is one of the biggest sources of contention in the debate, according to Gregory Frykman, a pharmaceutical analyst for the Stanford Group Co.

“If, all of a sudden, the patents become easier to challenge, and infringement is less of a penalty, and if patents are harder to get, that, at a minimum, increases uncertainty about future value streams of molecules in development,” he said.