In anticipation of this year's International CES forum, which begins on Tuesday, Jan. 8 in Las Vegas, a handful of Mashable staff members sat down for a Google Hangout with the event's founder and CEA President Gary Shapiro.
Shapiro praised his staff, and all those involved in the forum, for their devotion to transparency in innovation. Especially worth praising, he said, is the collaborative work of Congressman Darrell Issa (R - Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D - Ore.) in the fight against the SOPA and PIPA bills.
"[Issa] is the go-to person on patent issues -- he saved our industry's butt on SOPA and PIPA," Shapiro said. "When no one else would take up the council, he did. He and Wyden stood together at CES last year and said 'We are going to fight to the death on this thing.' And we won it."
Watch the video above to see the rest of his comments. You can catch the full conversation here.