In a letter dated August 30, Republican Leader John Boehner and Whip Roy Blunt said: "A bill of this importance and impact should not be rushed to the floor for quick passage."
The Congressmen said that many groups oppose the bill "as undermining the patent system".
"We are very concerned that the bill in its present form picks winners and losers among industries with different business models in a way that has never before been attempted in patent law or practice," they wrote.
Boehner and Blunt added that with manufacturers, labour unions, universities, biotech companies, high tech innovators, independent inventors and others expressing concerns about the bill, "it is a strong and clear signal that more work needs to be done to reach consensus on patent reform".
In a mark up on July 11, the House Judiciary Committee attempted to resolve some of the controversial issues in the legislation, such as post-grant opposition, by proposing a compromise. But issues including damages, USPTO rulemaking authority and the rules on inequitable conduct remain controversial.
The Senate also marked up its own version of the patent reform legislation in the same week.
Among other reforms, the two bills - which were introduced simultaneously in the House and the Senate in April - promise to introduce a first inventor-to-file system in the US for the first time.
Following the mark up by the Committee, the bill was due to be sent to the full House of Representatives to be debated. But the Republicans are now urging that it be further refined before that debate takes place.
While many big IT, media and software companies have backed the bills, claiming they will address abuses of the patent system in particular by patent trolls, representatives of the biotech, pharma and high-tech industries, as well as independent inventors, have opposed many aspects of the bills as drafted. They claim the bills will weaken patent protection and make it harder for innovators to use patents to gain funding.
In the letter, Boehner and Blunt urge Pelosi "to work with the sponsors in urging them to continue to work to find consensus so that all US companies benefit from reforming the patent system rather than advantaging one business model over another".
They say that, if that course is pursued, they will work in a bipartisan manner for an outcome that benefits the entire US economy.
