in essence, that's what medco is asking for. so i don't think it's right. i practiced law for a long time. i know how the system works. i know this fine law firm in boston, every day, the first thing they look at when somebody sues one of their clients is did the person file the lawsuit too late? if they did, they'll dismiss it. every judge that sees a motion to dismiss for lack of timely filing objectively looks at it. if it's one day, one hour, one minute late, you're out. that's the rule of law in america. it doesn't make any difference if you're a little widow lady or if you are the head of some company or if you are a big drug company or a big law firm. that's justice in america. so i don't think this is a good thing for to us do. and so now that we have this legislation before us, it's germane and appropriate because it has patent language in it for us to fix this decision we sort of got forced into making and to have a vote on it as part of this bill. what we know is that the language of the patent act we passed, the american invents act, would not t

sessions: -- the patent off the, the patent bill, medco statute of limitationations issue that's -- was -- house -- by a vote they said not to do it. the second vote they put it in by a narrow margin. our members did not want to amend the house bill. so this would give us an opportunity to vote on it. ms. mikulski: i remember that very we will, senator. i remember that it was enormously controversial. it was significantly confusing, and there was much to be said on both sides of that. i believe somebody missed the filing by 24 days -- i mean, 24 hours. mr. sessions: i think that's basically correct. ms. mikulski: but, you know, you were the chair of the judiciary committee. you are well-versed in the patent stuff. but why don't we turn it every to leadership and see how they want to proceed. mr. sessions: fair noser. i just wanted to for the record indicate that i was urging leadership to make the matter pending. ms. mikulski: make the matter pending. we'll turn it over to a higher power, okay? mr. sessions: mr. president, thank you. ms. mikulski: madam president, we note the absence of