Dana Rohrabacher: “I would ask my colleagues, do we want to be known as the Congress that killed the U.S. patent system, a patent system…”

“I would ask my colleagues, do we want to be known as the Congress that killed the U.S. patent system, a patent system which has served the American people well for 225 years? I ask America, America, are you listening? Congress is, once again, talking about reforming the patent system. The last patent reform bill, which passed last year, was the America Invents Act, and it just went into effect earlier this year, and patent lawyers and courts and inventors are still trying to figure out the implications of that change, of the change that that legislation made, and it was the most sweeping change in patent law in the history of our country. Yet, even before we are able to judge the effects of the America Invents Act, a new patent bill is being rammed through this House and through Congress. I wish I could focus simply on the bad provisions of this new bill, the Innovation Act. I like to think of it as the Anti-Innovation Act, H.R. 3309, which is expected to be on the floor later this week. But if the bill is bad, which we are talking about, the process being used to stifle debate and ram this down the congressional throats here on the floor is even worse. In the one Judiciary Committee hearing, witness after witness strongly recommended moving forward slowly, and warned of unintended consequences.…”