Melvin Watt: “Woman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am pained to be here today in opposition to this bill. I stood shoulder to…”

“Woman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am pained to be here today in opposition to this bill. I stood shoulder to shoulder with the chair of our full committee 2 years ago in patent reform after working almost 6 years to find consensus on a patent bill that moved our Nation forward. We are here this time a maximum of 6 months into the process, and we haven't done our due diligence because we have heard all morning people coming to the floor and saying this is a work in progress. I thought the place we did works in progress was in our committee system. Here we are on the floor with a bill that everybody is bragging about it being a work in progress. The result of that is that the work will be done on this bill by the United States Senate. They will write this bill. We won't write it because we didn't take the time to do what we should have done in the Judiciary Committee to refine this bill. I stood shoulder to shoulder with the former director of the Patent and Trademark Office 2 years ago, David Kappos, and this is what he says in an op-ed piece today: Our news is peppered these days with reports of ``patent trolls,'' dark, ugly creatures shaking down innocent companies based on absurd claims of patent infringement. Congress should quickly pass legislation to curtail this abusive behavior. However, some are using the need to address the patent troll issue as cover to unnecessarily weaken our Nation's patent laws.…”