Darrell Issa: “there are few things in this body that truly transcend party lines. The respect for the Constitution and our obligations…”

“there are few things in this body that truly transcend party lines. The respect for the Constitution and our obligations under it clearly are the most important among them. The Constitution makes it clear that inventors and authors and artisans are entitled to protection for a limited period of time under the Constitution. And yet, if it takes years to get through a patent case and only to have it reversed 30 to 40 percent of the time, much more often if it is a first-time case before a Federal judge, then justice is not only delayed but in some cases denied if you don't have the ability, after paying maybe $2 million, to pay another $2 million to go through the appeal process. Therefore, it is essential at the district court that the judges get it right the first time. Under the Markman decision, a Federal judge must decide what the patent means. It is incredibly technical often to decide what 5,000 claims, sometimes looking thicker than the Bible and the Koran put together, really mean; and yet that is an obligation of the judge. Those obligations may be in the areas of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering. It could be chemical. It could be bio. It could be so technical as to require outside experts just to decipher some of the language. And yet we ask a Federal judge, most often the one who has just ascended to the bench, to take on these patent cases.”