Congress has once again taken up the cause of reforming our patent laws, and both the House and Senate’s efforts to rein in abuse by so-called “trolls” have accelerated in recent months.

In February, House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) re-introduced the Innovation Act, a sweeping measure that passed the House by an overwhelming majority in late 2013.

The bill targets “patent assertion entities”—companies that exist solely to monetize their intellectual property holdings through litigation and/or aggressive demand letters. Thus, the measure concentrates on restricting the ability of such entities to obtain relief through the court system. It would raise the requirements for filing complaints in court; restrain the scope and timing of discovery in litigation; increase transparency of patent ownership; insulate customers from suits against manufacturers; and, most notably, shift the burden of attorney-fee awards.

Currently, American law eschews the “loser pays” approach of European courts; only truly exceptional conduct by a losing party warrants the imposition of attorney fees. But as a deterrent to frivolous filings, the Innovation Act would automatically award fees to the prevailing party in patent litigation, unless the positions and conduct of the losing party were reasonably justified.

But last session, despite the wide margins by which it passed, the Innovation Act perished in the Senate, where then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) ordered it withdrawn, reportedly as a favor to the trial lawyers’ bar. The 2015 version of the bill, however, which closely resembles its 2013 vintage, just passed the House Judiciary Committee by a 24-8 vote and will presumably head to the chamber floor in the near future.

Meanwhile, the Senate has advanced the Protecting American Talent and Entrepreneurship (PATENT) Act of 2015, a more balanced bill that also confronts patent abuse but differs from the Innovation Act in significant ways. It tightens pleadings standards while leaving open alternative avenues. It imposes more common-sense limitations on discovery. It affords some relief to patent-holders currently struggling with new Patent Office procedures that have resulted in a high rate of patent invalidation. And it tempers the attorney-fee language of the Innovation Act.

Specifically, instead of shifting the burden for fee awards to the losing party, it would simply lower the standard from “exceptional” conduct to “not objectively reasonable” behavior, while also carving out exceptions for universities and other research institutions filing patent lawsuits.

The PATENT Act sailed through the Senate Judiciary Committee a few weeks ago by a 16-4 margin, and while it remains controversial among a bipartisan group of senators and has provoked consternation in the biotechnology industry, its command of broad support, including among the chamber’s Republican leadership, makes it likely to proceed to passage, albeit with further modifications. President Obama has vowed to sign patent reform legislation before his tenure in the White House expires.

Whatever emerges from the process will hopefully reflect the careful balance that has anchored patent law for centuries: the need to protect innovators while distributing the benefits of their innovations as widely as possible.