Пересказ: Thomas Massie в комитете по правосудию — реформа PTAB

We now recognize the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Massey, for five minutes. Well, the last member of the administration that I was very nice to was Kristi Noem, and she was removed 48 hours later. But at that risk, I want to thank you for the great job that you're doing. I'd like your analogy of intellectual property to currency, but let's don't compare the central bank to the patent office because all of the founders were unanimous in understanding that the patent and copyrights were the foundation that would allow our country to grow, and I appreciate you doing that. It is an appropriate analogy because of intellectual property to currency, because we've had a crisis in our currency over the last decade, I believe, of intellectual property. If your currency is called into doubt, if the Federal Reserve notes in your wallet when you present them, even though they were issued by the government, if they're called into question when you try to use that currency, you have a problem. That's the way it's been with patents. The PTAB ostensibly was created to make it easier to adjudicate validity on the backend of a patent issuance and enforcement. The problem is it's created too much uncertainty, and I very much appreciate the steady hand that you've put on the tiller. I would disagree with my Democrat colleague who said that policy shouldn't change when administrations change. I would argue that elections should matter. Laws should not change. The patents that have issued should not change. They should still be valid, but we need somebody in charge. We need somebody to exercise common sense in the application of the laws that we have passed. And it seems to me that you're doing a very good job of that. And could you tell us about the rule that you're proposing and the actions that you've taken in terms of exercising discretion on the IPRs?

Thank you, Congressman. I'm happy to speak to the notice of a proposed rulemaking we have put forward. Basically, it's intended to restore fairness and balance to the IPR process. There have been instances where there have been as many as seven serial filings, and it's intended to be able to have the matter adjudicated once and for all early. And it's been termed, I will say, as one and done. But I think that's a misnomer. There's liberal joiner provisions that are carried through into the rule. And so I would say it's one, join and done. And the facility is provided for if there's a petition filed after there's been an adjudication that—excuse me—petitions filed, people can join. The answer isn't serial filings. We think the answer should be gang tackling at the time when it could be had. The preference would be to have a PGR-like process where things are laid open. That's not always possible. As has been discussed, things sneak through. But there should be a point in time where there's quiet title. There's finality. And people can have that chance and do it together. But it's got to be adjudicated once and for all. I agree. I think once you have the imprimatur of the government and you've survived a challenge, that's important because what I've noticed the last 10 years, a lot of people are shying away from companies that would have been based on intellectual property. I've heard people, inventors say, "I'm not even going to file the patent. I'm just going to try to rely on trade secrets." That creates a world of haves and have-nots when everybody can just keep all of their stuff secret and that's incentivized because of a patent system that's not working. And the PTAB, I do think it was probably, at least from the people who voted on it, originally intended to expedite this adjudication. But it's created uncertainty that has hurt our country, hurt our inventors. And I'm glad to see that you're exercising some common sense in the application of it. Any law can be weaponized. And we saw that the PTAB law has been weaponized. And I appreciate you taking it back and using it for common sense. I'll give you my last 15 seconds. Thank you very much, sir. And also to be reminded, IPRs are but one avenue. There's always re-examination, there's post-grant reviews, and there's district court. What we had found was, particularly with respect to IPRs, that it was intended to be an alternative to litigation, yet 80% of the filers already had a district court action with also instituting an IPR. Thank you. And thank you for taking out much of the redundancy that existed, because it doesn't get cheaper when people keep getting subjected to continuous IPRs or you survive the IPR and then go to court. I'll yield to Mr. Eisen.