Political Quotes

“the amendment that I have just called up that is pending before the Senate deals with what I think is a critical issue for this country; that is, making sure we can continue to move forward with innovation to grow the economy. There certainly are many debates that are going to be held as to how we get the productivity in this country to increase, how we create more middle-class jobs and grow the economy from the top to the bottom. But I think there is broad consensus that what has really driven our economy--really through the centuries but certainly most recently in the United States--has been innovation. It is about innovation, creating the next big thing, the big products that transform people's lives. In order to do that, companies that come up with these ideas need to have patent protection so that the effort they put into that product, the money they put into that product, they are able to protect as they market that product and get a return on their investments. Unfortunately, however, the backlog of patent applications at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has become completely unacceptable. The America Invents Act made a number of very important changes to our patent system that targeted the reducing of the backlog and driving innovation. At the time that act was passed, there were more than 700,000 patent applications at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.…”