From IPads to Crocs, New Patent Law Protects Design

One of Apple’s key weapons in its legal battle against competitors is a special type of patent that protects the visual appearance of a product. Critics have denounced these patents as a way to own “rounded rectangles”, but we may have to get used to seeing a lot more of them. Last week President Obama signed a law that will increase the term and scope of so-called design patents. The law could offer U.S. designers a new way to fight knockoffs—but some fear it will strain an already overburdened Patent Office and make America’s troubled patent system even more dysfunctional.

Design patents, which protect the ornamental features of an invention, are nothing new. To get a better idea of what they are, imagine a new type of fork that can pick up food better than ever before. The inventor could get a regular patent for the pickup function—but she could also get a design patent for distinct scrollwork built into the handle of the fork. A more familiar example is the design patents that cover the look and feel of Apple’s iPad.

Few people had heard of design patents until recently, when shoe company Crocs (CROX) used them to chase away rivals or Apple (AAPL) used its design patents to hammer Samsung (005930) for allegedly copying the iPhone and iPad. Design patents have also become more popular as the Supreme Court has taken an increasingly dim view of many conventional utility patents. (See the picture at right, posted by leading patent blog Patently-O, for examples of design patents in court right now.)

The just-signed Patent Law Treaties Implantation Act of 2012 will see more design patent requests flood in from more places. The main purpose of the law is to harmonize America’s design patent laws with the rest of the world—in particular, by letting “inventors” use a single application filed anywhere in the world to seek design rights in many countries at once. For instance, Ikea could submit drawings of a chair in Sweden and get a U.S. design patent based on the same application. The law, which will take effect in about a year, will also increase the design patent term from 14 years to 15 years and allow applicants to seek 100 different design inventions with a single application.

Richard Stockton, a patent lawyer at Banner & Witcoff in Chicago, says that traditionally, the first people to call him about design patents are manufacturers who outsource production to China but then discover the factory owner is replicating their product.

Now, though, he expects the new treaty rules will lead more foreign companies to apply for design patents in the U.S.

“Asia is very interested. A lot of people think there will be a snowball effect,” says Stockton. He adds that recent court fights between Apple and Samsung have awakened people to the fact that design patents are easier to get than utility patents.

“I’ve obtained them in 60 days with some elbow grease,” claimed Stockton, adding that a “good rule of thumb” price for a basic design patent application is $ 2,500 to $ 3,000 all-in, vs. several times that for a regular patent. (The 60-day figure might be an outlier—others say it usually takes more than a year.)

Stockton says design patents also pack more of a damages punch than regular patents because, if they are infringed, a court must award damages based on the value of the whole invention, not just a patented feature.

Sarah Burstein, a design patent expert at the University of Oklahoma, is skeptical that the new law is necessary and fears that lawyers will game design patents in the same way they have gamed other parts of the patent system. “The devil is in the details,” she said in a phone interview, and she predicted that more applications will arrive from Japan, Asia, and the rest of the world. U.S. designers, meanwhile, can likewise seek rights in more places.

Burstein is especially concerned about how the new law, as it stands, requires the U.S. Patent Office to reject design applications from foreign countries within a certain period of time. If it doesn’t, under the treaty, the applicant is entitled to design rights in America. And if a flood of new applications arrive, will the Patent Office be able to handle them? The office is already struggling to clear backlog and retain qualified examiners with starting salaries that begin around $ 42,000.

Burstein worries that the law’s current structure could lead companies to seek design rights first in countries with weaker standards and then use those overseas rights as a quick way to get design patent protection in the U.S.

And while the new protections could help U.S. designers in theory, Burstein believes any benefits will not be widespread.

“This won’t help poor design students,” she said.

A bigger question may be why Congress passed the law in the first place. America’s technology and retail sectors are already buckling under a wave of spurious patent lawsuits, many of which involve “patent trolls” using old patents to extort licensing fees. The new law could provide yet more ammunition for the trolls to shake down productive companies. And while most people would agree that inventors should have the right to stop ripoffs, America already has robust trademark and trade dress rules that let them do just that.

Ultimately, design patents may be yet one more area where America discovers that intellectual property rules are a lot like salt—a little bit can be great, but too much ruins everything.

Also from GigaOM:
Social 2013: The Enterprise Strikes Back (subscription required)

GigaOM’s Top 10 Cleantech Posts of 2012

Newspapers and Guns: If Data Are Available, Should They Always Be Published?

Is Congress Really Capable of Legislating the Future?

Christmas Content: E-books Boom, IOS Uplift

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Pakistan militants kill 41 in mass execution, attack on Shi’ites

PESHWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani militants, who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, killed at least 41 people in two separate incidents, officials said on Sunday, challenging assertions that military offensives have broken the back of hardline Islamist groups.

The United States has long pressured nuclear-armed ally Pakistan to crack down harder on both homegrown militants groups such as the Taliban and others which are based on its soil and attack Western forces in Afghanistan.

In the north, 21 men working for a government-backed paramilitary force were executed overnight after they were kidnapped last week, a provincial official said.

Twenty Shi’ite pilgrims died and 24 were wounded, meanwhile, when a car bomb targeted their bus convoy as it headed toward the Iranian border in the southwest, a doctor said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has noted more than 320 Shias killed this year in Pakistan and said attacks were on the rise. It said the government’s failure to catch or prosecute attackers suggested it was “indifferent” to the killings.

Pakistan, seen as critical to U.S. efforts to stabilize the region before NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, denies allegations that it supports militant groups like the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network.

Afghan officials say Pakistan seems more genuine than ever about promoting peace in Afghanistan.

At home, it faces a variety of highly lethal militant groups that carry out suicide bombings, attack police and military facilities and launch sectarian attacks like the one on the bus in the southwest.

Witnesses said a blast targeted their three buses as they were overtaking a car about 60 km (35 miles) west of Quetta, capital of sparsely populated Baluchistan province.

“The bus next to us caught on fire immediately,” said pilgrim Hussein Ali, 60. “We tried to save our companions, but were driven back by the intensity of the heat.”

Twenty people had been killed and 24 wounded, said an official at Mastung district hospital.

CONCERN OVER EXTREMIST SUNNI GROUPS

International attention has focused on al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.

But Pakistani intelligence officials say extremist Sunni groups, lead by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) are emerging as a major destabilizing force in a campaign designed to topple the government.

Their strategy now, the officials say, is to carry out attacks on Shi’ites to create the kind of sectarian tensions that pushed countries like Iraq to the brink of civil war.

As elections scheduled for next year approach, Pakistanis will be asking what sort of progress their leaders have made in the fight against militancy and a host of other issues, such as poverty, official corruption and chronic power cuts.

Pakistan’s Taliban have carried out a series of recent bold attacks, as military officials point to what they say is a power struggle in the group’s leadership revolving around whether it should ease attacks on the Pakistani state and join groups fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

The Taliban denies a rift exists among its leaders.

In the attack in the northwest, officials said they had found the bodies of 21 men kidnapped from their checkpoints outside the provincial capital of Peshawar on Thursday. The men were executed one by one.

“They were tied up and blindfolded,” Naveed Anwar, a senior administration official, said by telephone.

“They were lined up and shot in the head,” said Habibullah Arif, another local official, also by telephone.

One man was shot and seriously wounded but survived, the officials said. He was in critical condition and being treated at a local hospital. Another had escaped before the shootings.

Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan claimed responsibility for the attacks.

“We killed all the kidnapped men after a council of senior clerics gave a verdict for their execution. We didn’t make any demand for their release because we don’t spare any prisoners who are caught during fighting,” he said.

The powerful military has clawed back territory from the Taliban, but the kidnap and executions underline the insurgents’ ability to mount high-profile, deadly attacks in major cities.

This month, suicide bombers attacked Peshawar’s airport on December 15 and a bomb killed a senior Pashtun nationalist politician and eight other people at a rally on December 22.

(Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud in DERA ISMAIL KHAN and Gul Yousufzai in QUETTA; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ron Popeski)

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NORAD Santa trackers draw record number of phone calls, social media followers

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – NORAD says it drew a record number of phone calls and social media followers during its NORAD Tracks Santa operation on Christmas Eve.

The North American Aerospace Defence Command said Friday volunteers answered more than 114,000 calls, up 12,000 from 2011.

NORAD’s Santa Facebook page had more than 1.2 million followers, up from about 1 million last year. More than 129,000 people followed on Twitter, up from 101,000 last year.

NORAD got 11,000 emails, up from 7,700 in 2011.

More than 1,250 volunteers answered phone calls, including first lady Michelle Obama.

NORAD Tracks Santa began in 1955 when a newspaper listed the wrong number for children to call Santa. They wound up calling the Continental Air Defence Command, NORAD’s predecessor.

The operation is based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.

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Matt Damon tackles “fracking” issue in the “Promised Land”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The hot-button topic of “fracking” has finally made its way to Hollywood in the new movie “Promised Land,” out in U.S. theaters on Friday, with actors Matt Damon and John Krasinski teaming up to further the debate on the energy drilling technique.

The film explores the social impact of hydraulic fracturing drilling technique, or “fracking,” which has sparked nation-wide environmental and political battles over its impact on drinking water, U.S. energy use, seismic activity and other areas.

“Promised Land” will see Damon, 42, reunite with director Gus Van Sant for the third time, following their success with 1997 film “Good Will Hunting and 2002′s “Gerry.”

In their latest film, Damon plays a corporate salesman who goes to a rural U.S. town to buy or lease land on behalf of a gas company looking to drill for oil. He soon faces opposition from a slick environmentalist, played by Krasinski.

In real life, Damon hasn’t shied away from getting involved in political and social issues, working with charities and organizations to eradicate AIDS in developing countries, bringing attention to atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region, providing safe drinking water and stopping trees from being chopped and used for junk mail.

Yet “Promised Land,” which Damon also co-wrote and produced, doesn’t take a noticeable stance on “fracking.” The actor would not publicly state his own views, telling Reuters that he didn’t think his opinion had “any bearing” on the film.

“The point is that the movie should start a conversation. It’s certainly not a pro-fracking movie, but we didn’t want to tell people what to think,” Damon said.

The actor said he and Krasinski never set out to make a socially conscious film, and “fracking” was added in later, as a backdrop to the story.

“It wasn’t that we said we wanted to make a movie about ‘fracking’ as much as we wanted to make a movie about American identity, about real people. We wanted to make a movie about the country today, where we came from, where we are and where we are headed,” Damon said.

“‘Fracking’ was perfect because the stakes are so incredibly high and people are so divided. It asks all the questions about short-term thinking versus long-term thinking.”

Hydraulic fracturing entails pumping water laced with chemicals and sand at high pressure into shale rock formations to break them up and unleash hydrocarbons. Critics worry that “fracking” fluids or hydrocarbons can still leak into water tables from wells, or above ground.

FROM ‘ADJUSTMENT BUREAU’ TO ‘PROMISED LAND’

At first glance, the pairing of Damon with Krasinski may not come across as the perfect fit, as Damon has primarily been associated with longtime friend and collaborator Ben Affleck, both of whom won Oscars for writing “Good Will Hunting.”

Damon later become a colleague and friend to a number of key Hollywood players, including George Clooney and Brad Pitt, with whom he co-starred in the “Ocean’s Eleven” franchise.

Krasinski, 33, is best known for playing sardonic Jim Halpert on NBC’s long-running television series, “The Office,” and has had occasional supporting roles in films such as 2008′s “Leatherheads.”

Damon and Krasinski came together after meeting through Krasinski’s wife, Emily Blunt, who co-starred with Damon in the 2011 film “The Adjustment Bureau.” Damon said he and his wife started double-dating with Krasinski and Blunt, through which their collaboration on “Promised Land” came about.

The duo’s busy work schedules forced them to moonlight on weekends to make “Promised Land.”

“John showed up at my house every Saturday at breakfast and we would write all day until dinner,” Damon said. “Then we’d do it again on Sunday. I have four kids so he would come to me.”

But Damon’s determination to make the film his feature directorial debut fell through when his acting schedule changed, making it impossible to direct “Promised Land,” so he turned to Van Sant.

“My first inclination was to send the script to somebody I’d worked with before,” he said. “Gus seemed like the most obvious choice and I realized later that I’d never written anything that anyone else had directed, except Gus. I have a real comfort level with him.”

Damon said he has not given up on his dream of directing movies and has his eye on a project at movie studio Warner Bros., which has a deal with Damon and Affleck’s joint production company, Pearl Street Films.

With Affleck’s third directorial effort “Argo” becoming an awards contender, Damon joked that the film’s success can only be a good thing for his own budding directing career.

“I now happen to be partnered with the hottest director in Hollywood!” he said, laughing.

(Reporting By Zorianna Kit, Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Paul Simao)

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Hospitals, red tape may be limiting tubal ligations

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women in California and Texas have varying access to “getting their tubes tied” immediately after giving birth, according to a new study, but the reasons are still unclear researchers say.

Analyzing the records of nearly 890,000 mothers across 499 hospitals in both states, they found that more women in Texas got the voluntary sterilization procedure after delivery in 2009 than did women in California.

But the differences were not clearly linked to obvious factors – such as cost or religiously affiliated hospitals that refuse to do the surgery. Further, sterilization rates ranged from zero to 15 percent in California hospitals and between zero and 30 percent in Texas hospitals.

“This huge variation we’re seeing both between the two states and within facilities raises a red flag,” said study author Dr. Daniel Grossman, senior associate at Ibis Reproductive Health. “Our paper raises more questions than it answers,” he told Reuters Health.

Differences in federal funding could explain some of the discrepancies. Federal funds through Title X and Medicaid programs reach more women in California than Texas, Grossman said.

In his team’s report, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, the researchers suggest that Texas women have fewer low-cost family planning options, which may act as an incentive to get their tubes tied for contraceptive purposes.

Conversely, the more generous family planning funding in California might mean that women have access to low-cost options beyond sterilization after delivery.

Nonetheless, surgical sterilization remains very popular in the U.S. and nearly a third of women with children use it for family planning purposes, according to some estimates.

A 2011 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, found that tubal sterilization was performed following every one in 13 births in the U.S. between 2001 and 2008, while insertion of a contraceptive IUD was done after one in every 37,000 births. (See Reuters Health story of August 26, 2011.)

In the new study, Grossman and his colleagues found that in California, one in every 15 women had her tubes tied after delivery, compared with Texas where one in 10 women was sterilized after delivery.

They looked at several factors that might explain the variation in rates, but none stood out as a clear cause. Variation was similar among private versus publicly insured patients and among mothers who delivered by cesarean section – a procedure that might make it easier to have elective sterilization right after delivery.

The age of the mothers also did not explain the disparities. The data did not include the number of previous children the women had.

Differences in accessibility might arise from several other sources, the researchers suggested. Catholic hospitals ban sterilization, but non-Catholic hospitals could also have policies that limit tube tying.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s at an institutional level or a state level, it’s always the least mobile, the poorest (women) who don’t have the choice,” said Dr. Cori Baill, a physician at The Menopause Center in Orlando, who has counseled mothers in family planning issues.

Baill, who was not involved in the current study, said poor women who lack prenatal care will not have sterilization as an option since Medicaid requires expectant mothers to sign consent forms 30 days before delivery. “It’s ridiculous that Medicaid rule still exists,” Baill told Reuters Health.

Night and weekend staffing could also affect the variation in tube tying since doctors may not be around to perform the elective surgery, Baill added.

Though the current study did not examine how many mothers requested their tubes tied after delivery, Grossman and colleagues are examining the demand for sterilization in an ongoing pilot study in El Paso, Texas.

“Women across the country should be able to access the form of contraception that they want,” Grossman said. “We need more information to determine what accounts for this variability.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/Uqx8hQ Obstetrics & Gynecology, online December 20, 2012.

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Reasons to Be Scared of Microsoft Stock

The early days of January are typically a time of unbridled optimism. This will be the year we lose 10 pounds and learn to speak French; Japan will turn itself around; Microsoft (MSFT) stock will pull itself out of a decade of doldrums.

Most analysts are betting that the Redmond computer company’s time has come. The company’s fiscal-year revenue has nearly tripled to $ 74 billion in the last 10 years. At $ 27, the shares trade right at their 10-year average and yield more than it costs the company to issue debt. Redmond has Skunk-Worked an exciting new tablet and operating system it’s eager to showcase. It’s all backed by ridiculous amounts of free cash and a fortress-like balance sheet. The 12-month price target on the stock forecasts a 25 percent gain.

Still, the company has attracted at least one major detractor with a big megaphone: Barry Ritholtz, an asset manager who runs a quantitative research firm and founder of the well-trafficked blog The Big Picture. He considers the company a “classic value trap,” not unlike what its customers Dell (DELL) and Hewlett Packard (HPQ) were at the start of this annus horribilis. The problem, he says, is Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer. “As long as he is running the show—he has missed every major trend in tech over the past decade—I have no confidence in the company.”

He has company. Activist investor David Einhorn has wanted Ballmer out for more than a year and was long the shares in hopes that such an ouster would boost Microsoft’s returns. The stock is up 3 percent this year, compared with the S&P 500’s 14 percent gain. The 13 years since Ballmer became CEO have included the Vista debacle, a thankfully thwarted bid to overpay for Yahoo! (YHOO), the ceding of search supremacy to Google (GOOG), and Apple’s (AAPL) envisioning and dominating much of the smartphone and tablet markets. Meanwhile, where’s that “Skype Phone” in every palm?

‘Value trap’ is a funny term, says Bill Koefoed, Microsoft’s general manager of investor relations. Microsoft, he says, is trading in line with the big-cap technology sector, which has recently been out of favor with investors.

“Enterprise tech hasn’t been as sexy to the press. But our relevance to the enterprise has grown in a huge way. Our database business is growing faster than Oracle’s (ORCL) and IBM’s (IBM).”

Koefoed says people focus on Windows, which provides a quarter of Microsoft’s overall revenue, but not on the comparable 25 percent contribution from the company’s servers and tools division, which he emphasizes that Ballmer has grown, from a $ 3 billion business, to a $ 19 billion enterprise over the past decade. ”Over time, the stock price works itself out. We’re doing a whole bunch of things to be shareholder-friendly. Over time, that will be reflected in our share price.”

Meanwhile, Koefoed says, it was under Ballmer that the company initiated and consistently increased its dividend—with Microsoft shareholders overwhelmingly backing the CEO last month.

Ritholtz is unpersuaded “Think of the difference between what is revealed by a single snapshot of Microsoft today vs. an extended video. Yes, you can see the current situation of lots of cash, a low price-earnings multiple, name recognition, enterprise usage. But what about the trajectory and changes to the underlying market for their goods and services?”

He says that other than Kinnect for Xbox 360, “it’s hard to see what Microsoft gets for its billions of [research and development] dollars.”

“The competitive landscape has been moving against Microsoft,” wrote N. Landell-Mills of Indigo Equity Research after Microsoft’s “uninspiring” latest quarterly report, which involved the company raising its dividend 15 percent. The analyst called the organization “un-innovative and complex” and “a digital dinosaur.”

The full rollout of Windows 8 could, of course, change that state of affairs. Not that early signs are promising.

With the PC replacement cycle stretched out and assailed by competition that Microsoft failed to oppose, Ritholtz has taken to comparing its fate to that of Maytag (WHR). “It was,” he says, “once hugely successful and innovative and created lots of products and markets. Now you replace your dishwasher every 10 years; that’s the only time you ever think of Maytag.”

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2 arrested after Guinea treasury chief killed

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Officials in the West African nation of Guinea say they’ve arrested two suspects in the case of the killing of the country’s treasury chief, who was shot to death nearly two months ago.

Authorities paraded the pair in front of journalists Friday. Aissatou Boiro was killed as she was driving home. She had launched an investigation into the loss of 13 million francs ($ 1.8 million) which went missing from the state coffers.

The government says the suspects were found with Boiro‘s computer memory stick and mobile telephone.

The men denied any involvement in her slaying and said a friend had given them the items.

Boiro’s colleagues say she had zero tolerance for corruption and was intent on putting an end to the mismanagement of state funds.

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iOS apps see Christmas sales spike shrink in 2012

Distimo just released its statistics on Christmas Day app downloads and revenue growth… and the download spike is far smaller than it was last year. Back in 2011, Christmas Day iOS app download volume spiked 230% above the December average. This year, the increase was just 87% — far below industry expectations. The revenue spike came in at 70%.

[More from BGR: Google names 12 best Android apps of 2012]

Interestingly, iPad downloads increased by 140% this Christmas, implying that the iPhone download bounce was really modest.

[More from BGR: New purported BlackBerry Z10 specs emerge: 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 8MP camera]

A few weeks ago, AppAnnie released statistics showing that iOS app revenue growth had stalled over the summer of 2012, whereas Android app revenue growth was relatively strong at 48% over a five month period. Both Distimo and Appannie are respected companies and their analytics are closely followed by app industry professionals. Could it be that the pace of iPhone app revenue growth has slowed down sharply from 2011 levels, even if Distimo and AppAnnie numbers aren’t entirely accurate?

This article was originally published by BGR

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“Rescue Me” singer Fontella Bass dies aged 72

(Reuters) – American soul singer Fontella Bass, who topped the R&B chart in 1965 with the song “Rescue Me,” died in St. Louis. She was 72.

Bass died in hospice care on Wednesday night from complications of a heart attack she suffered three weeks ago, her daughter, Neuka Mitchell, told Reuters. Bass had also suffered from strokes in recent years.

“She’s going to be missed,” Mitchell said. “Her big personality. Her love for family. Her big, giving heart and her cooking.”

She was known as the “queen of soul food” to her family, Mitchell said.

Bass was born into a singing family in St. Louis. Her mother, Martha Bass, was a singer in the Clara Ward Singers gospel group. Her brother, the late R&B singer David Peaston, scored a handful of hits in the 1980s and 1990s.

Bass first achieved success dueting with Bobby McClure in 1965 on songs such as “Don’t Mess Up A Good Thing” and “You’ll Miss Me (When I’m Gone),” both of which were hits on the pop and R&B charts.

Bass’ biggest hit came with “Rescue Me,” which shot up the Billboard pop charts in the fall of 1965, becoming one of the most popular soul hits of all time.

“It held a special place in her heart,” Mitchell said of the song. “She sang it every time she performed.”

The song has been covered and sampled numerous times over the years, including by pop stars Linda Ronstadt and Cher, and more recently in 2000 by UK group Nu Generation, who remixed the song into a dance track.

Nu Generation’s remix, “In Your Arms (Rescue Me)” hit the top 10 of the UK singles chart.

Bass had moderate success in later years with a gospel album in the 1990s, but was unable to emulate the popularity set by “Rescue Me.”

She was married to jazz trumpeter and composer Lester Bowie. The two spent time living in Europe in the late 1960s and early 1970s before moving back to the United States.

Funeral arrangements for Bass have not been finalized. The singer is survived by her four children.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey and Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Senator McConnell says still time to avert “fiscal cliff”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top Republican in the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, on Thursday said that there is still time to avert the “fiscal cliff” and a “wholly preventable economic crisis.”

In a speech on the Senate floor McConnell warned, however, that Senate Republicans “aren’t about to write a blank check for anything Senate Democrats put forward just because we find ourselves at the edge of the cliff.”

Lawmakers and President Barack Obama are up against a December 31 deadline for finding a way to stop $ 600 billion in potentially harmful tax hikes and spending cuts from taking effect with an alternative deficit-reduction formula.

(Reporting By Richard Cowan and David Lawder; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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