[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 31 (Thursday, March 3, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Page S1171]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following any leader remarks, the Senate 
will proceed to a period of morning business until 11 a.m., with 
Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each. The 
Republicans will control the first half, and the majority will control 
the final half.
  At 11 a.m., the Senate will resume consideration of S. 23, the 
America Invents Act. I would hope if people have amendments they want 
to offer to this legislation they would do so. I would hope they would 
be germane, but there are no restrictions. People can offer whatever 
amendments they want on this matter. But I would hope we can do that.


                             Patent Reform

  We had an important amendment offered by Senator Feinstein yesterday. 
It is an extremely important measure. I am supportive of that. It is an 
issue where I think we should not try to fix something in that area of 
patent reform that is not broken. But the patent reform bill is 
important. We have 750,000 patents that have been applied for, and 
there has been no response from the Patent Office.
  One of the big issues we had was how we are going to pay for this, 
the work they have to do. We had a novel idea. Senator Coburn, it is my 
understanding, came up with the idea first: have the Patent Office pay 
for it with the applications people file. That money would go to the 
Patent Office to get rid of that backlog.
  In the past, as I understand it, those moneys have gone to the 
general fund. So that issue was going to be a big debatable issue on 
this bill. But there was a bipartisan agreement that we should take 
care of that. That is in the managers' package. So that is good.
  So the other issue is on the first-to-file. Senator Feinstein offered 
that amendment. We will have a vote on that as soon as we can. I would 
hope if there are other amendments, we can get to them quickly.
  There will be a period of morning business from 2 to 4 p.m. today. 
The majority will control the first hour, and the Republicans will 
control the next hour.
  Senators should expect rollcall votes in relation to amendments on 
the America Invents Act to occur throughout the day.

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