Darrell Issa: “I guess as a machinist union worker and a mechanic, I'll get that out there so that I get my claim to union membership…”

“I guess as a machinist union worker and a mechanic, I'll get that out there so that I get my claim to union membership and to having gotten a lot of grease under fingernails... This amendment, if it takes 10 years to get a second office action, will give the inventor 10 years of no one else seeing it. It is an infinite period of time, subject to the 20-year expiration. It is, in fact, an infinite period of time. And as an inventor, I chose the second office action, even though small inventors had said the first office action was good enough, because I was aware that the first office action is most often a rejection over which you overcome most of the objections. The second rejection, if there is one, they usually accept some, and if they give you a rejection, you usually don't overcome them, and the venture community, if you've had a second rejection, tends to discount potential additional claims. So that's the reason I chose those because, in fact, it gives you unlimited time to pursue your patent up to and through a second and, usually, final rejection.”