Political Quotes

“I note the distinguished ranking member's comments about "the suspension Congress" and lack of notice with regard to pieces of legislation. I would just point out that, first of all, he is very familiar with this bill and very familiar with the USPTO. He has handled this legislation very competently as chairman and as ranking member and as a member of the committee. So he is very familiar, I know, with the subject matter of which we speak and the difficulty that USPTO faces because of the structural nature of the way it achieves funding every year. He also knows that their estimating at the beginning of the year is an imperfect process because it's a prediction and it's based upon that prediction coming true in the future and it rarely does. They are either underestimating, or they overestimate. In this case they have financial needs that can be better met with this additional $129 million. And the good news for USPTO is that they underestimated last year. Consequently, if they continue to collect fees at the current rate, they will collect $129 million more than they projected. Given that, it is only right that we try to address those needs in the context of their newly projected fee collections so that they will be able to reduce this unacceptable backlog.”