you can't protect your invention. making headway. this week a senate judicial panel pass the patent reform act of 10 2011. here to tell us about it, david goldman. you have written about this. talk about writing about something obscure. most who don't invent things that have nothing to doing with the patent office have no idea what this issue is. what's the problem? >> well, there are a lot of problems with our patent system. i mean, when we're talking about inventions and we're talking about jobs, this is a big job creator, or a big potential job creator, but one of the problems is that the system is really broken. right now the u.s. patent and trade office, which controls all of the -- the patent applications has a 700,000 patent backlog. >> wow. >> it takes an average of three years. yeah. it's unbelievable. it takes an average's three years to get a patent through, and not just that, but after you