Patent confusion at eWeek?

In Tech Titans Form Patent Trust about Allied Security Trust, Roy Mark of eWeek portrays a misleading idea that the trust was formed in response to the failure of patent reform (S.1145) in the Senate -->

With efforts at patent reform stymied in the U.S. Senate, the nation's leading technology companies have formed a unique trust to buy valuable intellectual properties as a protective first strike against so-called patent trolls.

As EE Times has pointed out, the trust was formed in March 2007, one month after the Berman hearings in the House, and when patent reform was rolling along smoothly.

The last two paragraphs of the piece by Mark:

Led by large pharmaceutical and manufacturing interests, the bill has all but died in the U.S. Senate.

According to the Allied Security Trust, it costs operating companies "an average of $3.2 million through the end of discovery and $5.2 million through trial to defend these cases when there is more than $25 million at stake. Even a small claim is highly disruptive and requires significant time and legal costs to defend."

Query: what meaning is there in the sentence--Led by large pharmaceutical and manufacturing interests, the bill has all but died in the U.S. Senate?-- Pharma didn't lead the bill. The opposition included INDIVIDUAL inventors, universities, and organized labor. Perhaps Roy Mark should do some more homework.

See also

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/06/coalition-for-patent-fairness-morphs.html

On S.1145