Legislation that would drastically alter the U.S. patent system has at least a 50 percent chance of passing in this Congress, Patent and Trademark Office Director Jon Dudas predicted Wednesday at the Tech Policy Summit. He told CongressDaily he is “much more optimistic because a very real conversation has begun.” The Commerce Department spoke out against some elements of the bill in a February letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, but “it is [the] will of the Bush administration to get this through,” he said. Read the full story in Thursday's CongressDaily PM edition.