Date: 2013-12-05
Speaker: JACKSON LEE (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. the Club for Growth is opposed to this legislation. What this legislation does my amendment corrects. That is why I want to ensure that we slow this down and make sure that the people who are impacted positively are small inventors and small businesses. This gives a gift to big guys. conglomerates. that can already hammer you down if you challenge their use of your invention. What this says is the small guys get protected. That means innovation and inventiveness is protected. My amendment is a right way to go. It is a good solid balance. I ask my colleagues to support the Jackson Lee amendment. and I yield back the balance of my time. I have modified this amendment from that offered in the Judiciary Committee markup in order to accommodate more businesses who feel they might benefit from the narrowed language while still maintaining the intended consequence of allowing for stays in proceedings. The expanded language might allow some businesses who are past the "mom and pop" growth phase but if this will provide mediumsized businesses from going bankrupt. or losing valuable revenues because of expensive patent litigation. it is a useful expansion. It is well documented that our innovation ecosystemfounded on patentsdrives economic growth and job creation in the United States. From the hustle and bustle of downtown Houston. Silicon Valley. Chicago. New York. and even here in Washington. DC. Americans want to keep our cherished system as strong as possible. For the future of our economy. we cannot risk jeopardizing it. Section 5 is no doubt the most overbroad proposal in this legislation. In the only Judiciary hearing none other than former Undersecretary of Commerce and USPTO Director David Cappos testified that the litigation stay provisions of H.R. 3309 would immunize from liability ALL partiesand not just end users and retailers. provided they are located somewhere in a product channel downstream of the first component part maker. This grant of infringement immunity would include large commercial actors such as manufacturers combining procured components into valueadded completed devices. as well as those who assemble. It is well documented that our innovation ecosystemfounded on patentsdrives economic growth and job creation in the United States. From the hustle and bustle of downtown Houston. Silicon Valley. Chicago. New York. and even here in Washington. DC. Americans want to keep our cherished system as strong as possible. For the future of our economy. we cannot risk jeopardizing it. A number of the provisions in this bill may be wellintentioned. but they have undesirable consequences for the patent system as a whole. They have the potential to undermine the enforceability of all patent rights. no matter how valuable the patent. and thus potentially incentivize infringement. My amendment seeks to narrowly tailor the language in the bill so that it harms fewer inventors and legitimate patent licensing activity. I would note the opposition of my colleague from Kentucky. Congressman THOMAS MASSIE. himself an inventor. and unlike most of us in this bodya holder of patentswhose amendment seeks to strike the entire Section 5 of the bill. My amendment seeks to find a happy medium while not allowing large business concerns who have unlimited resources and use the might of big law firms to take out smaller businesses. Also my colleague Mr. ROHRABACHER. a longtime champion of small inventors and innovators has helped to spearhead a push urging leadership to delay this vote. We must act thoughtfully and with great caution as we pursue reforms to a system which took sixty years to changeand then in the batting of a Congressional eyelashlook to significantly modify once again. I was here during the long road that led to the path that became SmithLeahy. or the American Invents Act. That it took so long is somewhat perplexing but even more interesting is that the bill had a Republican House and a Democratic Senate. Yet we came together in a collaborative fashion and made lemonade out of sixty years of lemons while in the midst of some of the most jarring partisanship we have seen in this great body. Yet here we are this morning looking to pass a bill which has been essentially done in under two months.