Marcy Kaptur: “I just wanted to place on the record opposition to Mr. Issa's amendment to try to politicize decision making that is…”

“I just wanted to place on the record opposition to Mr. Issa's amendment to try to politicize decision making that is done by professionals over at the Patent Office. But in doing so, also to place on the record who's financing the expensive lobbying campaign on behalf of the bill that is before us today. They are a coalition of companies including transnational corporations: Adobe, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, eBay, Lenovo, Dell and Oracle. During the period of 1993-2005, four of them alone paid out more than $3.5 billion in patent settlements. And in the same period, their combined revenues were over $1.4 trillion, making their patent settlements only about one-quarter of 1 percent of those revenues. Now they wish to reduce even those costs, not by changing their obviously unfair and often illegal business practices, but by persuading Congress and also the Supreme Court to weaken U.S. patent protections. We ought to stand up for American inventors. We should not allow this bill to go forward. It should have sunlight. I know my colleagues are doing the best they can, but they can surely do better than this.”