; (4) the United States patent system is an essential part of the country's economic success; (5) strong patent protection improves the chances of success for small companies and increases their chances of securing financing from investors; (6) intellectual property-intensive industries in the United States generate tens of millions of jobs for individuals in the United States; (7) intellectual property-intensive industries in the United States account for more than one-third of the country's gross domestic product; (8) in the highly competitive global economy, the United States needs to uphold strong patent protections to maintain its position as the world’s premier innovative country; (9) Congress last enacted comprehensive reforms of the patent system just recently, in 2011; (10) unintended consequences of the comprehensive 2011 reform of patent laws are continuing to become evident, including the strategic filing of post-grant review proceedings to depress stock prices and extort settlements, the filing of repetitive petitions for inter partes and post-grant reviews that have the effect of harassing patent owners, and the unnecessary duplication of work by the district courts of the United States and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board; (11) the Judicial Conference of the United States has made significant revisions to rules governing pleadings and discovery in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which took effect in December 2015; (12) the Supreme Court recently issued rulings in Octane Fitness, LLC v. Icon Health & Fitness, Inc., 134 S.Ct. 1749 (2014) and Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Health Management System, Inc., 134 S.Ct. 1744 (2014) that significantly reduced the burden on an alleged infringer to recover attorney fees from the patent owner, and increased the incidence of fees shifted to the losing party