The 'Steal American Technologies Act'

The 'Steal American Technologies Act'

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, from California's Huntington Beach, is not a go-along kind of guy.
The firebrand conservative congressman contends the "moneyed interests" are determined to reduce the patent protection afforded American inventors. Not only that, they already managed to slip through one of their proposed changes, two full years ago, before anyone realized what was going on.
The multinational companies "that want earlier access to U.S. inventions ... have already scored one significant victory in this struggle," Rohrabacher wrote in the Oct. 6, 1997 edition of the magazine Legal Times. "As part of legislation implementing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Congress, in 1995,

unnecessarily decreased the length of time during which inventors have the exclusive right to make, sell, or license their patented creations."
"That was passed in a very sneaky way," the congressman explains in a telephone conversation from his Washington office. "They put it in the GATT implementation legislation, when it was not required by the GATT treaty. Remember, that legislation was unamendable. Either we had to accept it the way it was, or just cast a thumbs-down vote for international trade. It's (Clinton patent office chief) Bruce Lehman who's doing this. This was all part of an agreement he reached with the Japanese, when he went over there right after Clinton was elected."
The old patent protection term in America was 17 years from the time the patent was granted, the congressman explains. Although the new 20-year patent term sounds longer, the clock actually now starts running from the date the patent application is filed.
Today it takes four years to grant the

average patent ... and it can take eight to 10 years with a complicated new breakthrough invention, like the laser, the computer microprocessor, or the medical Magnetic Resonance Imager. "That leaves inventors with 16 or fewer years" ... sometimes less than a decade ... "to reap the rewards from the blood and sweat they poured into their inventions," the congressman contends.

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Although a discussion of the technical details of patent law is likely to put anyone but the most dedicated law student to sleep, "We have our patent protection to thank for our industrial strength, and really for the American standard of living," Rohrabacher argues.

"All American inventors have always been able to count on that 17 years of protection, during which they could earn back and profit from their investment of time and labor -- this was true of Eli Whitney, of Alexander Graham Bell, of Thomas Edison, of the Wright Brothers. They knew the American system guaranteed, first, confidentiality while their application was under review, and second, that it guaranteed a patent term of 17 years once it was granted."

I contacted the Washington office of Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah and sponsor

of the patent office "reforms" contained in Senate Bill 507, the "Omnibus Patent Act of 1997," for a response to Congressman Rohrabacher's complaints.
"The other side has really done a good job of circulating a lot of misinformation about this," responded Sen. Hatch's press secretary, Jeanne Lopatto. "They refuse to acknowledge all the changes that were made in the bill before it was brought out, which satisfy most of the objections that were put forward by the small companies, and the private inventors."
Ms. Lopatto forwarded, in response, a May 1997 press release from the Senate Judiciary Committee, arguing that the reforms included in S. 507 will make the patent system "more efficient, making the pace of technological change even faster so the U.S. will continue to dominate the world in this area."
S. 507, Sen. Hatch argues, makes the patent and trademark registration system more efficient "by converting the Patent and Trademark Office into a government corporation separate from the stifling bureaucracy of the Commerce Department. In addition, the early publication provision of S. 507 speeds up the pace of innovation and allows inventors to stake an early claim to their

inventions, while protecting inventors from theft during patent pendency."

Among the changes in the May, 1997 revision of the bill are: "an 18-month publication for applicants who file only in the U.S. was made optional. Also, the patent restoration provisions were amended so that all diligent patentees should have a minimum 17 year term from issuance."

So, it won't be required to show your work to foreign interests before your patent is granted ... providing you don't apply for any overseas patent protection, in the first place. And patent applicants "should" -- no longer a guarantee -- have 17 years of protection, providing they're "diligent."

"There are some benefits in the Hatch legislation," Rep. Rohrabacher agreed on Jan. 13, shortly after returning from a fact-finding trip to Lebanon. "But all of those benefits could be put in place without major new legislation. ... They're in there to cover the main thrust of this legislation, which is a set of horrendous changes.

"The real purpose is to 'harmonize' American patent law, which has been the strongest patent protection available for anyone in the world, and change it to match the very weak patent protection enjoyed

by Japanese inventors."
In fact, the congressman points out, " 'Japanese inventors' is almost an oxymoron. There are hardly any Japanese inventors because they have been beaten down by the big-money interests; they're not allowed to profit from their work.
"This legislation is designed to facilitate the greatest rip-off of our genius and our technology in the history of our country. ... It was destined to just slip through the process, it was literally sliding right through the system, so it didn't require a great deal of lobbying, initially."
But since the southern California troublemaker blew the whistle, "IBM has spent money backing this bill, Intel, almost every company in the Fortune 500 was opposed to my efforts including the (United States) Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, you name it.
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"Now, I think many of these companies were sold a bill of goods, that to have foreign trade we have to have 'harmonization.' But we don't need to diminish our other freedoms. We don't need to 'harmonize ' our freedom of religion to Japanese standards in order to facilitate foreign trade, do we?

We don't need to 'harmonize' our protection of freedom of speech down to their standards, do we?"

"You have to ask: Why is the Japanese system such a bad system? Why aren't there any Japanese inventors; why do they steal technology instead of inventing it? Under what they're trying to impose, which is the Japanese system, you'd have to publish the information about your application after 18 months, whether or not the patent has been granted. That puts the moneyed interests on notice to a new potential source of wealth, so they can surround the inventor and steal his invention.

"Under our system, the patent office holds your application and all the information confidential, so the inventor can raise enough money based on his ownership to develop and protect his invention. Individual inventors will tell you that under this system they never would have made a penny.

"It can take decades, sometimes, to win a patent on a major invention. Farnsworth fought for decades over the TV picture tube. ... If we eliminate the guaranteed patent term ... it's highly likely an inventor will receive no compensation, at all.

"Now, if the Japanese wanted to bring their standards up to ours, fine, but to them, 'harmonize' means to knock down our standards to be as low as theirs.

"Also under their bill, if you do get a patent that doesn't mean you're free from challenge. You're not only open to challenge before you get your patent -- thanks to the publication of your application -- but this would also allow companies with big stables of lawyers to challenge your patent after it's granted. ... There are gonna be a lot of crimes committed against the American people in the name of 'the global economy'."
I asked Rep. Rohrabacher -- whose substitute version of the bill failed by a whopping 50 votes on the House floor last year -- whether he thinks there's any hope of defeating the proposed changes.
"Our only hope is to mobilize public support. ... Yeah, if you can get the attention of the public for five minutes, I think we can win this one."
What Americans need to do "is call or write their own senators, and ask them to help defeat S. 507," Rep. Rohrabacher says. "I call it the 'Steal American Technologies Act'."

Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin@lvrj.com. The column is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127.

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