Greg Ganske: “Mr. Chairman, imagine if someone held a patent on taking a patient's temperature by placing a thermometer under the…”

“Mr. Chairman, imagine if someone held a patent on taking a patient's temperature by placing a thermometer under the tongue, and charged a royalty of $1 each time this was done. Imagine somebody downstairs in the House dining room choking on a piece of steak and the person who uses the Heimlich maneuver on the victim receives a bill from Dr. Heimlich for using this procedure. For more than a century the Patent Office refused to grant patents on methods of treating the sick but did start issuing these patents in the 1950's. In recent years patent holders have started enforcing these patents either by excluding others from using the procedure or charging a licensing fee. The Patent Office now estimates it issues more than 100 medical procedure patents per month. My amendment borrows from and improves the Medical Procedure Innovation and Affordability Act, which has over 130 House cosponsors. This amendment would prohibit the Patent Office from using funds appropriated in this bill to issue these types of patents. These patents are causing real problems. Dartmouth Medical School recently spent 3 years and nearly $500,000 in legal fees defending its right to perform cataract operations, because a surgeon patented cataract operations and was seeking up to $10,000 in royalties per clinic eye surgeon. If these procedure patents and their attempted enforcement continue, health care costs are going to skyrocket.”