Marcy Kaptur: “Mr. Speaker, I regret the gentleman does not have more time as well. I wish to say to the gentleman, thank you very much…”

“Mr. Speaker, I regret the gentleman does not have more time as well. I wish to say to the gentleman, thank you very much for being here this evening, and to say thanks to our colleagues who have also labored on this bill. There is regular order here. We should have regular order, especially on a bill of constitutional magnitude. We all recognize it is. Let me say for those of us who may question why do we need to change anything about this patent system which protects the seed corn of our country, the lifeblood of our ideas, what is so bad about the current system we have today, when we are the leading industrial-military-arts-power in the world? Everyone else wants to file their patents here because of the very successful system that we have. If we do it wrong, we jeopardize our own leadership. So why are we so afraid to take the time to let Members read these provisions? If the bill is so good, then it will go through on its own merits, but not through clamping down on regular order in the debate that should precede on a measure with constitutional consequences. Frankly, if it is a bad bill, it is going to end up in the courts and it is not going to go anywhere. So we owe it to the American people to do it right the first time. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the 10 minutes, but I truly wish at a minimum 20 minutes for a constitutional question, is that really asking too much?”