Sheila Jackson Lee: “I thank the distinguished Member from California. To my colleagues on the floor, this has to be, could have been or…”

“I thank the distinguished Member from California. To my colleagues on the floor, this has to be, could have been or hopefully can be one of the greatest opportunities for bipartisanship that we have seen in any number of years. That was the process that was proceeded under on the Judiciary Committee, though obviously there are always disagreements; but the whole idea of our debate and the support of the present underlying legislation without the manager's amendment was to, in fact, create jobs. In the committee, a number of my amendments were accepted, but in particular, the focus of converting from a first-inventor-to-use system to a first-inventor-to-file was thought to promote the progress of science by securing for a limited time to inventors the exclusive right for their discoveries and to provide inventors with greater certainty regarding the scope of protections granted by these exclusive rights. Further, this new system was to be, or should be, able to harmonize the United States patent registration system with similar systems used by nearly all other countries with whom the United States conducts trade. This was to shine the light and open the door on American genius. In addition, so many of us have waited so long to be able to give the resources to the PTO in order for it to do its job.…”