Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise to support the Conyers-Watt substitute. Unlike the underlying bill, the substitute takes effective steps to address the patent troll problem without including the unnecessary endangered so-called ``tort reform'' provisions. The substitute, like the bill, includes provisions providing customer stay exceptions, raising awareness in the small business community as to their rights when confronted with patent trolls, and increasing transparency of patents in the companies that own them. The substitute takes additional steps to address the problem. It includes a study of how to address bad-faith demand letters, which are scaring retailers and others into settling claims based on convenience as opposed to merit. And very importantly, the substitute does not include the loser-pays provisions of the underlying bill. Loser-pays laws have a chilling effect on justice. They would deter legitimate patent owners with meritorious claims from pursuing justice. In this country, the general rule is that each side in a legal proceeding pays its own attorney fees and costs. Most of the statutory exceptions that Congress has enacted have been geared towards encouraging private litigation to implement good public policy. Awards of attorneys' fees are often designed to help to equalize disputes between private individual plaintiffs and corporate or government defendants.…”