Political Quotes

“Let's use a little common sense here. We have a provision in the common law called ``customer stay,'' which says that a customer can ask to join the manufacturer of the product that it is alleged is infringing because that manufacturer knows a lot more about how the product was manufactured, what licenses and patents were used to do that, and is best able to defend a claim by a patent troll or by a legitimate inventor that a claim is valid or not valid. What the gentlewoman from Texas does is she says that any small business above $25 million--say the local hospital, the local university, the restaurant chain of, say, 15 or 20 restaurants, the same thing for a retail store, a grocery store chain--they can't avail themselves. So what happens? The patent troll knows that there are certain jurisdictions in this country where the court will not issue the customer stay, notwithstanding the long historic common law doctrine of customer stay. What we simply say in this bill is that if the customer, regardless of the size, and the manufacturer, regardless of the size, both agree, then the customer stay provision will apply; the manufacturer can come in and defend the case. It is eminently fair to every party involved to get at the core of whether or not the patent is a good patent and a valid patent. And who knows best? The manufacturer.…”