Patent Reform Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Without objection, it is so ordered.

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, am I correct there is a vote at 12:30?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.

Ms. CANTWELL. The time is equally divided on the Feinstein amendment?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Correct.

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I rise to support the Feinstein amendment and to ask my colleagues, who I know have been working diligently on the legislation for several years now, to respect the very tough balance that has been sought in this legislation as this legislation came out of the Judiciary Committee.

I know we adopted a managers' amendment yesterday, and I know that managers' amendment now is catching a lot of people off guard because there are far more changes than people realized in that managers' amendment that I think upsets that apple cart of balance that was struck in the Judiciary Committee.

So I am urging my colleagues to support the Feinstein amendment and expressing my concern for the underlying bill that is something that, at this point in time, I cannot support.

I do not come to that decision lightly nor because of the fact that I have many high-tech companies in the State of Washington that might say we need patent reform and that this is good innovation. But large high-tech companies are not the only ones that know something about innovation. In fact, most of the people who have helped build those organizations were once the small inventors themselves of key technology.

What is at stake is unbalancing the apple cart as exists today to innovation--not just innovation in general but innovation in an information age. The meal ticket for all of us is going to be the invention and creation of new products and services. So that is the great time and age we live in.

But if in this legislation we all of a sudden upset that apple cart, where we are tilting the playing field in support of large corporations that have already made their mark and made their markets and made their success and have slowed down on the rate and progress of innovation within their companies and do a lot to acquire technology from smaller inventors--and now, all of a sudden in this underlying bill, particularly in the area of damages, make sure the big corporations can win in any kind of legal dispute against the technology holder or creator because they are able to outlast them in a legal battle because they are more well financed, more well heeled, with the ability to draw out this battle--because of that change in the underlying bill, we leave the small guy without many resources.

The only thing the small inventor has is their intellectual property and a fair day in court. If now we take that away from them, I guarantee you, they will have less success. Then, when you have less success of having 5,000 flowers bloom, we have a problem.

This is not about what five or six or seven large corporations can create. This is about what thousands and thousands of innovators are going to create in the future and whether they are going to be incented or disincented to do that.

The Feinstein amendment tries to protect the current process, to protect what are the rights of those inventors today under current law. I am sure my colleagues will say: Well, that is not the way the rest of the world does it. I would say to my colleagues: I am not sure the way the rest of the world does it is the mark we are trying to hit. What we are trying to preserve is the entrepreneurial spirit that has been created in the United States. I am not saying that is not based on just raw creativity of individuals--it is--but it is also based on financial incentive and the incentive those individuals have that their intellectual property can be protected.

But if this is going to be a game about the big boys coming to Washington and squashing the small inventors, count me out. This has to be a level playing field. I get it is tempting to want to, in the last minute, stick into the managers' amendment language you could not get out of committee.

But if we want to get this legislation through this process, then we have to take into consideration the rights of the inventors along with the rights of those larger companies that are trying to acquire or integrate or be part of the manufacturing on a larger scale of that inventor's technology.

So I say to my colleagues, the Feinstein amendment, in keeping the rights of the inventors where they are, gives them at least a modicum of holding on to that. I think the underlying bill has changed so much in the managers' amendment that we are going down a road that is going to make it very difficult for us to finally get a piece of legislation. We have to respect the rights of the small individuals, and we can't have carve-outs for specific jurisdictions such as Wall Street who think they can have their cake and eat it too.

This has to be about how we move forward on a smoother patent process. We need to take into consideration that we have gotten to this great place in our country because we have had a balance and an empowerment of these technologies. We should not all of a sudden in one fell swoop take that away on the Senate floor and basically undermine what is the creative opportunity for the U.S. economy, which is an invention. We want thousands and thousands of inventors--not just inventors who work for big corporations--thousands of inventors who have their rights.

So I support the Feinstein amendment.

I thank the President, and I yield the floor.

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