Gov. Charlie Baker signed most of a $1.15 billion economic development package last Friday afternoon, approving restrictions on the use of non-compete agreements and greenlighting a sales tax holiday for this weekend, but vetoing protections against bad-faith assertions of patent infringement. 

The product of a late-session compromise between the House and Senate, the bond bill authorizes almost $538 million in public infrastructure grants for local projects, $250 million for the popular MassWorks municipal infrastructure program and $75 million in grants for technical education and workforce training. 

Baker’s office had already telegraphed that he would sign the provision of the economic development bill that would authorize a sales tax holiday for Aug. 11 and 12, but the governor also approved 63 of the 71 other outside policy sections in the bill. 

Baker used his veto pen on a policy section that would have prohibited a person from making an assertion of patent infringement in bad faith, known as “patent trolling.” 

The second and final section vetoed by the governor would have created a special commission to study the barriers to establishing “last mile” broadband connections.  

The governor sent six parts of the bill back to the Legislature with proposed amendments. He proposed a sunset date for an apprenticeship tax credit program two years later than what the Legislature had approved, arguing that the Legislature’s 2022 sunset date would not provide enough data on the effectiveness of the program. 

Baker also proposed amendments to sections dealing with a study of widening Route 2 between Gardner and Concord, a special commission to study data related to programs that support stable housing and economic self-sufficiency, and a task force that was to stimulate the revitalization of industrial mill buildings.