To extend the temporary suspension of duty on 2-Chloro benzyl chloride.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 34) to establish a pilot program in certain United States district courts to encourage enhancement of expertise in patent cases among district judges.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. BERMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 34 and ask my colleagues to join me in voting to pass this legislation. Last Congress, an identical bill passed unanimously through the Judiciary Committee and then passed by voice vote on suspension on the House floor.

Patents are the cornerstone of our economy and provide incentives for innovation. Therefore, it is all the more important to continually assess the effect patent litigation has on the preservation of patent quality and intellectual property rights.

H.R. 34 authorizes the Administrative Office of the United States Courts to establish pilot programs in the United States district courts where the most patent cases are filed. At minimum, five courts, spread over at least three circuits, will take part. To qualify, a court must have at least 10 judges, and at least three judges must request to take part in that program in each of the districts.

The chief judge randomly assigns the patent cases. Should that judge, who is assigned the case, decline that assignment, one of the several judges who has opted to take part in the pilot program receives the case. Further, H.R. 34 requires the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts to report to Congress on the pilot program's success in developing judicial expertise in patent law and authorizes funds to increase both judges' familiarity with patent law and provide additional funding for clerks.

Patent law is an extremely complex body of law involving analysis of intricate technologies, and Federal district court judges spend an inordinate

amount of time on patent cases, even though patent cases only make up 1 percent of the docket. The combination of the complex science and technology, the unique patent procedures and laws, the administration of the courts and their dockets, and the sheer number of issues raised by patent litigation makes improvement of the patent adjudication system a uniquely complicated, difficult, but necessary, task.

The impetus behind this bill, in part, is the high reversal rate of district court decisions. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, which has exclusive jurisdiction over patent appeals, reverses over 30 percent of the district court patent claim constructions. Critics assert that the high reversal rate is due to judicial inexperience and misunderstanding of patent law. The pilot program we are proposing here would address this problem by increasing judicial familiarity with patent law and providing funds to pay additional clerks to assist with patent cases.

The Administrative Office of the United States Courts had concerns about the effect of the pilot program on randomness of assignments. Therefore, in an amended version of the bill, we address this issue by only allowing the district courts with a large enough pool of judges to participate in the pilot program. As a result of this change, at least three judges will take part in the program to ensure that the selection of a certain court does not mean the selection of a certain judge.

Therefore, as the pilot program increases the expertise of judges who opt into the program, it also ensures that the selection of a certain district court is not outcome-determinative, and thus it does deter forum shopping.

While recent accounts demonstrate that as time passes Federal district court judges are becoming more proficient at the application of patent claim construction rules, and while reversal rates are coming down, judicial inexperience in patent law still frequently gives weak, untested and presumptively valid patents the same kind of protection previously reserved for strong and judicially tested patents.

As the importance of intellectual property continues to grow in our economy, we can expect that the Federal courts will spend even more time on patent cases. Thus, we must act now to improve the timeliness and quality of their decisions.

A patent program, combined with a study of its results, serves as a valuable tool in assessing the ability of the courts to become more knowledgeable about the specific laws and technologies involved in patent cases. By providing extra resources and fostering judicial experience in patent law, we can lower the reversal rate of district court decisions and ensure that invalid patents do not receive protections.

Questions have arisen about why the legislation is necessary. All Federal district judges should already be striving, obviously, to enhance their knowledge of patent law through extra classes and training. I want to make clear, this bill does not serve as a cushion for judges who shy away from patent law. Instead, H.R. 34 will assess the benefits of the channeling of patent cases towards judges with greater interest and expertise in patent law and determine whether the program improves patent quality and expedites the adjudication process. This bill is only a pilot program.

Patent quality has been a long-time priority of mine, and I believe H.R. 34 is a first step to resolving some of the deficiencies in the patent system. But this in no way substitutes for comprehensive overhaul of the patent system designed to ensure that innovation is not at risk in the 21st century. By increasing judicial expertise in patent law, H.R. 34 should ultimately improve both patent quality and the litigation process.

As I mentioned previously, this bill has the full support of the Judiciary Committee and many industries and trade groups, including the pharmaceutical, technology, biotech and consumer electronics industries and intellectual property owners and other intellectual property organizations.

I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 34.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I simply join with my friend the ranking member in complimenting both the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) and the other gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).

If one could patent all of Mr. Issa's ideas, the Patent Office would truly be backlogged for a very long time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 34.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, there are few things in this body that truly transcend party lines. The respect for the Constitution and our obligations under it clearly are the most important among them.

The Constitution makes it clear that inventors and authors and artisans are entitled to protection for a limited period of time under the Constitution. And yet, if it takes years to get through a patent case and only to have it reversed 30 to 40 percent of the time, much more often if it is a first-time case before a Federal judge, then justice is not only delayed but in some cases denied if you don't have the ability, after paying maybe $2 million, to pay another $2 million to go through the appeal process. Therefore, it is essential at the district court that the judges get it right the first time.

Under the Markman decision, a Federal judge must decide what the patent means. It is incredibly technical often to decide what 5,000 claims, sometimes looking thicker than the Bible and the Koran put together, really mean; and yet that is an obligation of the judge. Those obligations may be in the areas of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering. It could be chemical. It could be bio. It could be so technical as to require outside experts just to decipher some of the language. And yet we ask a Federal judge, most often the one who has just ascended to the bench, to take on these patent cases. This bill is designed to reduce the times in which the most complex cases get before the least prepared and sometimes even the least willing Federal judges.

It also is an example of something that has been used in other ways, but appropriate here: a theory that you must mend it, not end it. We have an obligation, and the Federal courts with us have an obligation, to deal with intellectual property properly because it is a right under the Constitution, and yet it is broken. My colleagues, Mr. Schiff as the cosponsor but, more broadly, Ranking Member Smith have been supportive. The now chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Berman, helped all along the way. Mr. Conyers has been supportive, both in the last Congress and this Congress, in getting this bill out; and Senator Leahy and Senator Feinstein are working on the Senate side for a counterpart.

This type of legislation is narrowly crafted but deals with the exact problems we are facing. Let me just give you one example, Mr. Speaker. Most Americans understand in the last Congress the RIM or BlackBerry case, a case in which for years the litigation continued on and we were dealing with over half a billion dollars of final damages. Reversal after reversal, decision and indecision. That shouldn't happen when we are dealing with billions of dollars.

This legislation seeks to spend only $5 million a year to check out the feasibility of what would probably be only $50 or $60 million in total a year to make our Federal courts able to deal with what turns out to be tens or hundreds of billions of dollars of commerce.

Therefore, I hope that because we pass this early and, I trust, unanimously once again, that we will be able to deal with the Senate, bring this to the President's desk, and begin working with the courts to implement it.

Last but not least, an unusual ``thank you.'' Justice Breyer was a major part of this discussion from the earliest stages, and as somebody who, while as a Senate staffer, was considered to be the father of the Fed circuit, his opinion that there needed to be a fix in the district court so as not to have to take from the district courts the very jurisdiction that we speak of here today, was crucial to the development of this bill.

I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for this bipartisan support.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 34, a bill to establish a pilot program in certain United States district courts to encourage enhancement of expertise in patent cases among district judges. Congressman Adam Schiff and I have worked together on this legislation since the last Congress, and I am grateful for the chance to move this legislation forward today.

The high cost of patent litigation is widely publicized, and it is not unusual for a patent suit to cost each party over $10,000,000. Appeals from district courts to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit are frequent. This is caused, in part, by the general perception within the patent community that most district court judges are not sufficiently prepared to hear patent cases. I drafted this legislation in an attempt to decrease the cost of litigation by increasing the success of district court judges.

H.R. 34 establishes a pilot project within at least five district courts. Under the pilot, judges decide whether or not to opt into hearing patent cases. If a judge opts in, and a patent case is randomly assigned to that judge, that judge keeps the case. If a case is randomly assigned to a judge who has not opted into hearing patent cases, that judge has the choice of keeping that case or sending it to the group of judges who have opted in. To be a designated court, the court must have at least 10 authorized judges with at least 3 opting in.

The core intent of this pilot is to steer patent cases to judges that have the desire and aptitude to hear patent cases, while preserving random assignment as much as possible. Each of the test courts will be assigned a clerk with expertise in patent law or the scientific issues arising in patent cases, and funding is also allocated to better educate participating

judges in patent law. The pilot will last no longer than 10 years, and periodic studies will occur to determine the pilot project's success.

I am happy to say that H.R. 34 is supported by software, hardware, tech and electronics companies, pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, district court judges, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and the Intellectual Property Owners Association among others.

This legislation is a good first step toward improving the legal environment for the patent community in the United States. H.R. 34 should not, however, be taken as a replacement for broader patent reform. We still need to address substantive issues within patent law, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on that broader effort as well.

I thank Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Ranking Member Lamar Smith, as well as Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman Howard Berman and Subcommittee Ranking Member Howard Coble for all of their efforts in moving this legislation. I also thank Committee staff David Whitney and Shanna Winters for their counsel during the development of H.R. 34.

I encourage all of my colleagues to support H.R. 34.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Texas for yielding.

And I probably won't use 5 minutes, but, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 34, a bill to establish a pilot program in certain United States district courts to encourage enhancement of expertise in patent cases among district judges, is a bill that deserves the continued support of the Members of the House. As has been indicated both by Mr. Berman and Mr. Smith, drafted by Representatives Issa and Schiff, this bipartisan legislation was passed unanimously by the House last year, but due to the press of time the other body did not consider the measure. With House action early in this Congress, we will be able to ensure our colleagues on the other side of the Hill have maximum

opportunity to fully and fairly consider this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that our Nation's patent laws have become the subject of much scrutiny and debate. Indeed, Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith and the chairman of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee, Representative Howard Berman, with whom I look forward to working this Congress, have been leaders in developing substantive and comprehensive reforms to our Nation's patent system. The further consideration of these proposals is the IP Subcommittee's highest priority this Congress. I am encouraged and hopeful that we will be able to look back at the end of the 110th Congress satisfied that we ran the course and completed this important task.

But there is related work this House can complete immediately that will serve as a step in the right direction. By passing H.R. 34, a commonsense and narrowly tailored measure that will provide designated Federal district judges the opportunity to improve their expertise in the handling of patent cases, the House will be taking an early, positive first step along the road to comprehensive patent reform.

Mr. Speaker, a typical Federal district judge may preside over no more than three or four, five at the most, patent cases which are litigated to conclusion during the course of his or her career. Patent cases comprise only 1 percent of cases filed in Federal court, yet they make up nearly 10 percent of complex cases. The timely and appropriate resolution of these cases is vital to uphold the rights of individual litigants. But it also serves the larger interests of consumers and the economy.

Patent litigation, Mr. Speaker, is characterized by disputes that involve the interaction of numerous parties, the integration of sophisticated technologies, and the application of technical aspects of substantive patent law by judges who are rarely presented with such cases.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 34 is a modest bill that will enable a small number of these district judges to be designated to gain additional experience and resources in handling these cases, the outcome of which is so crucial to our economy.

This legislation also includes safeguards to prevent these districts from being used to promote ``forum shopping'' as well as provisions to ensure that the Congress is provided with useful periodic reports on the progress of this new initiative.

Again, I thank the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith), and Representatives Schiff and Issa for their work.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is widely recognized that patent litigation is too expensive, too time consuming, and too unpredictable. H.R. 34 addresses these concerns by authorizing the establishment of a pilot program in certain United States district courts that is intended to encourage the enhancement of expertise in patent cases among district judges.

The need for such a program becomes apparent when one considers that fewer than 1 percent of all cases in U.S. district courts, on average, are patent cases and that a district court judge typically has a patent case proceed through trial only once every 7 years. These cases require a disproportionate share of attention and judicial resources, and the rate of reversal remains unacceptably high.

The premise underlying H.R. 34 is simple. Practice makes perfect, or at least better. Judges who focus more attention on patent cases can be expected to be better prepared and make decisions that will hold up under appeal.

This bill is the product of an extensive oversight hearing which was conducted by the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property in October 2005. The authors of H.R. 34, Representatives Darrell Issa and Adam Schiff, introduced this measure on January 4, 2007. This legislation is identical to H.R. 5418, a bill that passed the House unanimously last September. Unfortunately, the clock on the 109th Congress expired before the other body could take up this bipartisan measure.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 34 will require the Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts to select five district courts to participate in a 10-year pilot program that is to begin no later than 6 months after the date of enactment.

The bill specifies criteria the director must employ in determining eligibility of districts. It contains provisions to preserve the random assignment of cases and to prevent the selected districts from becoming magnets for forum shopping litigants.

The legislation also requires the director, in consultation with the director of the Federal Judicial Center and the chief judge of each participating district, to provide the Committees on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and the Senate with periodic progress reports.

Before closing, Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the superb job that the bill's sponsors did in seeking out and incorporating the advice of numerous experts as they developed this bipartisan legislation. Congratulations go to Congressmen Darrell Issa and Adam Schiff. Their success and cooperation have resulted in a worthy bill that deserves the support of the Members of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble), the ranking member of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee and a former chairman of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa), a member of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee and one of the two principal sponsors of this very worthy legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support of H.R. 34, which authorizes a new 10-year pilot program designed to increase judges' expertise in presiding over patent cases. Under the new pilot program, district judges could request to hear cases relating to patent law or plant variety protection. Currently, cases in Federal district courts are assigned randomly. Under the measure, if one judge declines to hear a patent case, the case could be reassigned to one of the judges in the pilot program who has requested to hear such cases.

The bill directs the Administrative Office of the Courts, within six months of enactment, to designate at least five courts in at least three different judicial circuits in which the pilot program would be conducted. It requires that these districts for the pilot program be chosen from the 15 districts that have had the largest number of patent and plant variety protection cases filed within the past year, and that the pilot program is conducted in districts in which at least three judges will participate. It also requires the administrative Office of the Courts to submit periodic reports to the Committee on the Judiciary for the House and the Senate regarding the effectiveness of the pilot program.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 34 enjoys strong bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee. I urge my colleagues to support this pilot program.