Barney Frank: “Mr. Speaker, I hope we will pass this bill very clearly and overwhelmingly. A lot of lip service is paid to the role…”

“Mr. Speaker, I hope we will pass this bill very clearly and overwhelmingly. A lot of lip service is paid to the role that innovation plays in our economy. The time has come to put our money where our mouth is. Indeed, it is not even our money. What we are talking about here is trying to change a practice whereby patent application fees have been used to support other governmental programs, rather than devote all of that to the Patent Office. It should be noted that we raised patent fees a few years ago. When we raised them, the assumption, the implicit promise, was these fees would go to improving the patent process. To take fees from people seeking patents and diverting them to other purposes is a grave error. We ought to be maximizing our ability to service the innovators in this economy, and we do that by allowing these fees to stay here.”