Mike Lee

Being dependent on the whims of Washington has not worked out well for Utah's ranchers.

We are pleased to report that in the PATENT Act, with the support of a bipartisan array of cosponsors, we will finally be able to enact these reforms.

In the last Congress, Senator Leahy and I proposed legislation to deal with abusive patent practices directed at small businesses.

This appears to me to be something that could well be a solution in search of a problem.

Will this not inevitably extend the period of time that it takes to get regulatory approval, given that the rule contemplates a need to either get this approval from BLM as part of the APD process or outside the process separately?

If that is the case, if you have got a number of states that do not have any regulations at all and you have got other states that do have regulations, none of which are inadequate, why not allow those states that have regulations that you…

Thank you Mr. Chairman and thanks to all of you for your testimony it has been very informative today.

Right. My understanding is that some trace the civil forfeiture laws that we have today back to what was known at common law as the Deodand, which was based on a theory that the object--an object that was used in killing somebody…

And just to be clear, you do not, I take it, have a problem with the Government seizing property that was involved in a crime, seizing property from someone who was involved in a crime and where guilt is adequately proven.

The heart of the problem really is to clarify the standard of intent that is required.

Now, many of the problematic forfeitures tend to arise in the context of structuring and the Department of Justice and IRS recently announced new policies regarding structuring forfeitures.

That is why I am a cosponsor of the FAIR Act, along with my colleague, Senator Rand Paul.

The Constitution says that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

H.R. 9 has a provision which requires, you are not entitled to enhanced damages unless you identify the patent.

I think it makes good sense.

Perhaps that in combination with staying discovery pending a court's ruling on a motion to transfer would incentivize an early and prompt ruling.

I couldn't agree with you more.

I think addressing the issue of abusive litigation is critically important to big businesses and small businesses.

I am a huge fan of the satellite offices.

If universities are not controlling, directing the litigation, they, too, should be protected just as private, a passive investor should be protected.

But the bottom line is our judges work very, very hard to work on each and every single case.

I think that is an idea that is worthy of consideration. And there is a lot of merit to it for a couple of reasons.

If we can make these improvements and we can achieve them and we can achieve the necessary changes in legislation and beyond, to the extent that everyone has greater confidence in the patent system, that will benefit universities, that…

We certainly need to do all that we can to continue to ensure that our universities are an engine of innovation.

We are generally supportive of the goal. And many of the issues here, in one form or another, we believe are necessary to ensure meaningful and balanced reforms necessary to continue to incentivize innovation in the United States.