[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 96 (Tuesday, June 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H5899-H5903]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                                  GATT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, the passage of the GATT implementation 
legislation late last year was supposed to put into place the legal 
framework for trade policy that was required by a trade agreement that 
had been hammered out among the various nations of the world. That was 
what it was supposed to be. The only problem being a major change in 
the U.S. law was snuck into the implementation legislation, even though 
it was not required by the GATT treaty.
  So what I am talking about tonight is something that was snuck into 
law late last year and is just now being implemented as the law of the 
United States of America.
  What was this mysterious provision that magically appeared in the 
GATT implementation legislation? Oh, it was nothing more than just a 
little old change in the patent law, just a little change in the patent 
law that if allowed to stand will cost American inventors and American 
investors billions of dollars, if not corrected.

                              {time}  2145

  Something may be happening that is very sinister here in Washington, 
DC, or it might be very innocent. Whatever it is is going to result in 
the transfer of billions of dollars from one set of pockets to the 
other set of pockets. Why was this change, this change that actually 
redirects the money flow, why was it accomplished through the GATT 
implementation legislation?
  This Congressman, along with a majority of my colleagues, voted for 
the GATT fast-track authority. What that did, it gave the 
administration the [[Page H5900]] right to negotiate this trade 
agreement, which would then be voted on as a single vote. It would be 
all or nothing. The implementation legislation would be presented to 
us, it would be one vote, all or nothing, and we could not vote to 
amend what was presented to us.
  This arrangement was made to ensure that the trade agreement would 
not be amended to death, and that our negotiators could actually go and 
negotiate with our foreign trade potential partners, and that, 
basically, was a good idea, as long as everyone kept their word. The 
understanding, of course, was that the only changes that would be made 
part of the GATT implementation process would be changes that were 
required by the treaties that had been negotiated with our potential 
trading partners. There would not be anything else in the GATT 
implementation legislation, so we could vote on it up-or-down.
  Congress and the American people were lied to, and we were betrayed. 
I personally feel betrayed, because I voted for fast-track authority 
for GATT. GATT did not require our country to diminish the patent 
protection enjoyed by our citizens. Yet, it was placed in this bill in 
hopes of passing this major change in patent law without full debate, 
without full scrutiny.
  This Congressman was even denied the right to even see the language 
of the proposed legislative change until shortly before the vote was 
scheduled. I am an elected representative of the people. I asked for 
weeks to see the legislative language. I was denied the right to see 
that until it was sent to Congress itself.
  Adding insult to injury, under fast track, Congress was supposed to 
have 60 days to examine the proposal and then to vote on it. This 
administration
 submitted GATT to Congress only a few days before a scheduled recess, 
which put us in the position of voting for all of it or none of it, 
with little time to consider the detail. This was either smart or it 
was sneaky or it was sinister, depending on one's perspective. Luckily, 
the administrator was forced to stand off, which gave us some more 
time. We had to come back to vote on the GATT later on.

  What is the major change that was in GATT which eventually was voted 
on and made into law? What is this change that I'm talking about that 
was snuck into GATT, but not required by our trade negotiations?
  Americans traditionally have been blessed with patent laws which 
protected our inventors and our investors. This protection of patent 
rights ensured that our country was in a position, over our country's 
history, in the forefront of technological change. Patent protection 
was considered so vital to our country's well-being that it is put 
right into our Constitution. Very few countries can say that their 
Founding Fathers were so committed to technological change in the 
advancement and well-being of the common man that patent protection, 
patent laws, the actual insistence that there be a Patent Office, was 
put into the Constitution of our country at our country's founding.
  This could explain why the Americans were in the forefront of things 
like the reaper, which helped us bring in crops so well that we fed our 
people better than any other country in the world; the telegraph; 
telephones; steam engines; trains, and the list goes on and on. The 
secret, perhaps, is that we had the protection of those inventors and 
investors who were behind them, we had that protection in law, up until 
it was secretly changed by the GATT implementing legislation.
  If an American inventor applied for a patent, no matter how long it 
took the Government to issue that patent, once it was issued to the 
inventor, it might take 10 years, it might take 5 years, it might take 
15 years, but once it was issued, the inventor and the investor owned 
that invention for 17 years, so there was a profit motive, and they had 
control of the technology they had developed for 17 years.
  That is the secret behind the genius of our people. We have built it 
into our country's laws. We have protected their rights to own what 
they have created. However, the GATT laws changed that.
  The GATT law changes that dramatically. The change is designed, 
incidentally, to appear to be of little consequence. In fact, it 
appears to elongate the time of patent protection. Now, after the GATT 
changes are in effect, when an inventor files, if his patent is issued 
immediately, he will have 20, not 17 years but 20 years, of full 
protection. However, as the law now reads, after 20 years he is done. 
He does not have patent protection. Remember, before it was only 17 
years.
  That would be really great if patents were issued immediately, but 
they are not issued immediately. In fact, almost every technological 
breakthrough that has changed the lives of mankind that have been based 
on patents issued to Americans have taken years and years, sometimes 
more than a decade, sometimes more than 15 years, to issue.
  Thus, the patent holder, under those laws, under the old laws, still 
had 17 years worth of protection. Under the new law, his or her patent 
rights would be virtually destroyed and meaningless. Under the new 
provisions, the real patent time is dramatically, dramatically reduced 
for people who are inventing important technology.
  What does that mean? Again, it means billions of dollars that should 
be going into the bank accounts of American inventors and American 
investors will now end up in the bank accounts of multinational and 
foreign corporations. It also means that technology Americans have 
invested in and that Americans have created will not end up being used 
against us by our competitors, because the length of real patent 
protection has been drastically reduced.
  It is, in short, one of the greatest ripoffs in history. That is what 
just happened in slow motion and quietly and part of the GATT 
implementation legislation, and something that, unless we act, the 
perpetrators of this crime will get away with.
  Why was it done? What was the excuse? Certainly, it could not have 
been the excuse that we are going to put this into the law, and it is 
going to rip off the American people. No one would have agreed to that.
  We have to admit that some of the people who voted for this and 
supported it probably do honestly believe that it will have a positive 
effect, and the positive effect that has been heralded by those who 
believe it and those who do not believe it, who are just using it as a 
cover, the positive effect is called harmonization of patent law.
  Yes, the United States, Japan, and Europe have different kinds of 
patent law. We have different laws to protect other rights as well: 
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press. There are 
different laws protecting rights in the United States, and we pride 
ourselves in having stronger protection of our rights in the United 
States than do other countries.
  However, Bruce Lehman, head of our Patent Office in the United 
States, has decided that harmonization of patent law is really an 
important thing in and of itself, it will be something that is very 
good. In doing so, because he believes this, he agreed to put this 
change into our patent law, a change which eliminates the time certain 
of protection of American patent holders.
  He did this in agreement with the Japanese, who were insisting upon 
this, and it was part of a verbal agreement, and yes, an agreement that 
was made in writing which has to be passed into law by Congress, but 
instead of going to Congress openly, he decided ``Oh, well, I will 
fulfill my part of the bargain,'' which he had no right to make for the 
American
 people. Without the passage of Congress, he decided just to slip it 
into the GATT implementation legislation, so we would either have to 
accept that or we would have to vote down all of the changes in trade 
law that were encompassed in the trade negotiations, and we would have 
to suffer the consequences of a major disruption of trade in the United 
States.

  What did Bruce Lehman, our negotiator, get in return for basically 
eliminating the rights that Americans have enjoyed for over 100 years 
in terms of their patent--their for sure time of patent protection? In 
exchange for it, we got the right to file in Japan, to file for a 
patent in Japan in English. We got that right.
  We also got an agreement from the Japanese who, in good faith, 
promised our negotiator that ``We will indeed improve our patent system 
so that the average patent in Japan, if you agree to make your changes, 
so that you no [[Page H5901]] longer have this 17 years of protection, 
we agree that you will have a patent system in Japan to work with in 
which the average patent will be issued within 3 years.''
  This deal reflects an almost criminal naivete. To cover up this 
absurd acquiescence to the Japanese interests, we have seen underhanded 
tactics being used to pass this legislation, and we have seen 
representatives from our government lying to the American people about 
what this is all about.
  Mr. Lehman himself has been claiming that the average time to issue 
an American patent is only 19 months. Thus, if the average patent is 
issued in 19 months, and you have said it is 20 years, you have 20 
years, after all, of patent protection from the time of filing, then 
actually the average person has more time, more patent protection, than 
he would have had we kept the law the same.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not true here, what Mr. Lehman is saying about 
19 months, the average time, and it will not be true in Japan. The 
American people are in the process of having their patent rights ripped 
off. Yes, 19 months is an average for something in our Patent Office. 
It is the average Patent Office action, although American businessmen 
all over this country are repeating the phrase that it only take 19 
months for a patent, average patent, to be issued. That is, pardon the 
pun, a patent lie.
  The fact is that it is not 19 months for a patent to be issued in the 
United States, it is the 19 months
 that is an average patent action, meaning an action by the Patent 
Office. This includes the action on totally inconsequential patents, 
things that make no difference to anyone's lives, that are applied for 
in the hundreds, if not thousands, by businessmen, like the stripe on 
the bottom of a toothpaste tube.

  There is a lot difference between talking about patenting the stripe 
on the bottom of a toothpaste tube and getting it approved in months, 
as compared to patenting a laser, which might take decades.
  There is also another factor. Not only are they inconsequential 
patents that he is putting into the mix, but Mr. Lehman has been 
including patent rejections, meaning it is not 19 months for the 
average patent to issue. It is 19 months for the average action to take 
place, and those actions include inconsequential patents and rejections 
of patent requests, which also can be made in a very short order.
  This type of absurdity with averages, Mr. Speaker, as they say, 
statistics can lie, and liers can use statistics. After altering my 
fellow Member's opinion on what they were being told, as to what the 
effect of this law would be, I moved forward to try to move forward 
with a provision and changing of our law that will bring back and 
restore the patent rights of the American people that were ripped off 
as part of the GATT implementation legislation.
                              {time}  2200

  My fellow members, we were sometimes unaware of what was going on in 
GATT, and some of them that were aware, when they talked to the so-
called experts, were given these phony statistics and had no idea of 
the details which we are talking about tonight.
  Well I authored the legislation, H.R. 359, to restore the American 
patent rights of the American people, and my colleagues from both 
parties, I have substantial support from both parties, rallied to the 
cause. One hundred seventy members from both parties have cosponsored 
H.R. 359 to restore American patent rights. A sister bill to the one 
that I am talking about was introduced by Senator Dole in the Senate.
  Thus we are poised, ready to take back the rights that were stolen 
from the American people. Yet there has been no action.
  Here we are in June, no action has been taken on H.R. 359, which has 
had more cosponsors than almost any bill like it in history. Now, why 
is it? Why is it just sitting here? Why has not it been acted upon?
  Well, it is because of the opposition of one Member of this body, one 
Member, the gentleman from California [Mr. Moorhead], the chairman of 
the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Properties, to which this 
bill was assigned. He has refused even to hold a hearing on this piece 
of legislation. ``Not enough time to hold a hearing.''
  Well, some of those opposing my bill, they, and maybe the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Moorhead], is in the situation, maybe he is not, 
but there are some people who opposed this piece of legislation because 
they believed there is a bigger problem in the United States than 
simply protecting the patent rights of our people. There is an issue 
called the submarine patent issue, which has to be dealt with, and 
perhaps the gentleman from California [Mr. Moorhead] is more concerned 
about dealing with that problem than in dealing specifically with my 
bill that deals with patent protection for the American people.
  Just to give you a short background on the submarine patent issue, 
the idea is, and there are some indications that some inventors have 
manipulated the system over at the Patent Office to elongate the time 
that it takes for their own patent to be issued.
  Now, almost every patent or inventor that I know does everything that 
he or she can possibly do to get
 that patent issued immediately because change in our society is so 
rapid that if you have an invention now, you want to get it issued to 
you so you can start making a profit on it, and nobody, nobody is going 
to invest in your new technology on a patent pending. They are waiting 
until after you have been issued the patent. But some inventors, it is 
claimed, and it is possibly true, that there are some inventors who 
have been ripping off other corporations by basically playing the 
system, and so that they are not issued the patent and they elongate 
the time so when they are issued the patent, they have 17 years from 
that moment, which is longer than they would have otherwise.

  Mr. Lehman claims there are hundreds of such cases. Unfortunately, he 
has not been able to prove that. There are some cases like that. Many 
of the examples he and other people in the Patent Office have given, in 
fact, are not cases of submarine patents, but are cases where the 
Government has, in fact, delayed the issuance of the patent, and 
sometimes for national security reasons, and not the patent applicant 
himself.
  But I have been bent over backwards because I am concerned only about 
maintaining the 17 years of protection that is traditional for American 
patent applicants. So I have stated time and time again in meeting 
after meeting with the gentleman from California [Mr. Moorhead] and 
others, Mr. Lehman and others, people representing industry, I have 
said I will put into my legislation anything that we can put in that 
legislation that will solve the submarine patent issue as long as it 
does not diminish the 17 years of guaranteed protection that our 
American inventors have enjoyed, and, you know, no one has ever come 
back to me with any suggestions, which means that in my way of thinking 
that perhaps that issue is being used as a cover, as an excuse to 
diminish the time of patent rights and enrich multinational and foreign 
corporations by billions of dollars that they would not have otherwise.
  The submarine patent issue is based on the idea that someone is 
playing the system at the Patent Office, which means the correction 
could be made simply by reforming the way the system works at the 
Patent Office, the way decisions are made at the Patent Office, the way 
the structure is set up by the Patent Office, which can be done by 
administrative
 reform and in no way does it mandate the diminishing of the 
intellectual property rights enjoyed by the American people.

  I happen to believe that most people using the submarine patent 
argument are honest. They truly believe that this is the reason why 
that we have to bring down the number of years of patent protection, 
but again there are many people who are using this as a front to take 
away patent rights and take away property rights when the real solution 
could be done administratively without diminishing people's property 
rights at all.
  So there my bill sits. There sits my patent bill, H.R. 359. The 
gentleman from California [Mr. Moorhead] claims there is no time for a 
hearing. Yet my bill has 170 cosponsors.
  And last week, the gentleman from California [Mr. Moorhead] had a 
hearing in his subcommittee on another patent bill that was quickly put 
together that has two cosponsors, two. And what did that bill do? H.R. 
1733, what did it do? What did the bill that [[Page H5902]] is moving 
through the system accomplish? I will tell you what it does. It 
mandates that once an American files an application for a patent, that 
18 months after that application is filed, whether or not the patent is 
issued within that 18 months, that patent application will be published 
for the world to see. This is before a patent has been issued, American 
inventors will see their creations published for the world.
  It does not take a rocket scientist to understand the result of that 
will be the stealing of American technology by foreign interests and 
also by large corporations here. This, by the way, interestingly 
enough, why would anybody, why would anybody be stupid enough to come 
up with an idea about letting the world know all of our secrets of our 
technological creativity of our people even before the patents are 
issued to protect them? Why would they do this?
  Well, this was another one of the demands that the Japanese had made 
to Bruce Lehman, and, you know, if we are going to have a harmonization 
and a goodwill between our countries, we have got to make sure that we 
have an understanding with Japan because, after all, it is our best 
trading partner, our biggest trading partner.
  What we are talking about is a sign that says when a patent 
application is put into place, a sign that will be raised, a huge neon 
sign 18 months later that
 says, ``Come and steal me. Anybody in the world, here is something of 
value, come and copy it.''

  There is something sinister happening here in Washington, or there is 
just something stupid happening here in Washington. The American people 
are about to become victimized in one of history's greatest ripoffs and 
they do not know what is coming down. They cannot see it happening. It 
is complicated; and it is a very complicated issue, and that is what 
all of these experts have been relying on.
  But the Japanese and the Chinese, they are going to know; they know 
exactly what is happening. I will tell you that if the bill that the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Moorhead] is pushing through his 
subcommittee now passes and that every American inventor who applies 
after spending years trying to create new technology, if immediately 
after 18 months that this is published for the world, even before the 
patents are issued, before any kind of semblance of protection is 
granted, I can tell you that our Japanese and Chinese friends will have 
many people stationed here in Washington, DC. They will have offices 
right near the Patent Office because they will go there, and when it is 
published, the Japanese and Chinese runners will run to their offices, 
and the copy machines and the Xerox machines will be running, and the 
fax machines with overseas transmission lines to fax this material over 
to these other countries who are our competitors and trying to destroy 
us economically will be waiting for the good news of what new things, 
what new things, what new creations have Americans come up with today?
  Does that not make you feel good? Something is happening. Something 
is happening. Something sinister or something stupid.
  We are entering into a new technological age, and our government is 
destroying our greatest asset, the creative genius of our people. We 
are giving it away for some feather-headed notion that we are going to 
have global harmonization of patent rights and that is going to make us 
all love each other and we can operate in goodwill.
  If we told the American people at any time that we wanted to have 
harmonization of the individual rights of our citizens to pray and to 
speak and to assemble and the other constitutional rights that we have, 
and we had some feather-brained government official making
 a deal with the government of Singapore or some other country, whether 
Japan or any other country, say, ``By the way, the American people are 
just going to have to give up these rights that they have been talking 
about for so much. They are too individualistic. We need a new global 
concept of human rights to make sure wherever you go, people have the 
same human rights, so from now on the American people are going to have 
to accept the same human rights level and the same rights, political 
and social rights, that they would have if they lived in Singapore.''

  Do you think the American people would stand for that? Do you think 
anybody but a lamebrain would even think about offering that to the 
American people?
  Well, somebody might offer it to them, but they might have some other 
motives in mind. Maybe they do not like the American people. Maybe they 
do not want the American people to have the rights that they have had 
fundamentally, both economically and politically, because they do not 
like America because of what America stands for.
  Well, that is that what is happening here today. We are entering into 
a technological age, and our creative people are losing the fundamental 
rights that they have had as Americans. The investor who invest in new 
technology are finding that their investment, they will lose control of 
that investment of the product, of that investment, just like the 
inventor, and that their competitors, after a much shorter period of 
time, will end up using that technology against them and, in fact, 
their competitors will learn every detail of what they have created 
with their investment and their time and their energies even before it 
is granted a patent.
  How can we look into the future and say that in this new 
technological era we are going to change the rules in a way that 
diminishes the incentive of our people to invest in technology?
  Our biotech industry has invested tens of billions of dollars. Yet we 
are now going to tell our biotech industry whatever they come up with 
they are not going to have; if it takes them 10 years to get through 
the system, and sometimes it takes 15 years for them to get issued a 
patent, ``Oh, I am just sorry, that means you are only going to have 5 
years' or 3 years' worth of protection, even though you have invested 
billions and billions of dollars.'' What kind of effect will that have 
on America's future and our ability to lead
 the way, to keep and remain the technological leaders?

  The biotech people will get ripped off, they know that, just like 
every other American inventor will get ripped off, and thus they will 
not invent, and thus they will not invest, because the system has 
changed fundamentally. Well, will these people, whoever they are, 
whether they are stupid or whether they are sinister, will they get 
away with this? Well, I do not know. But I can assure you this, the 
American people are going to hear about this. I am going to talk about 
it.
  We have got 170 of my colleagues who have joined with me, and Senator 
Dole who has joined with me in the Senate, to correct this horrible 
legislation, to restore American patent rights to what they were. We 
will not permit the gentleman from California [Mr. Moorhead], one man, 
to make the decision for this whole body on an issue of this magnitude. 
I call the system that would permit one man to make that decision for 
all of us a system that does not function for the people. I would call 
it an abuse of power if one individual tried to prevent the entire body 
from having a chance to vote on and to discuss this issue on the floor.
  We Americans are respected because of our courage, our strength, but 
also one word that always comes to mind when people talk about the 
United States of America is creativity and ingenuity.
  You know, Thomas Jefferson himself was an inventor. Visit Monticello. 
See those things that Jefferson did. What did he do? He thought of new 
ways to save labor and to make life better without having gone to spend 
as much time and effort.
  What about Benjamin Franklin? We know about Benjamin Franklin. 
Benjamin Franklin was one of the premier inventors of his time in the 
world. He was also there at the Declaration of Independence, and he was 
there when our Founding Fathers put together that fundamental document 
of law that has served us so well, the Constitution of the United 
States.
  It is no coincidence that technologists, that people who look to the 
future, were the people who wrote the Constitution of the United States 
of America.
                              {time}  2215

  It is up to us to carry on that tradition. Those people talked about 
individual rights. They talked about freedom. They talked about the 
dignity of [[Page H5903]] the common man and that we would be a society 
that would be so prosperous that even the common man could own the 
product of his labor, could live in peace and harmony with his family. 
Unlike the other societies in Europe and in the vast stretches of Asia, 
tyranny would not reign in America because we believed in freedom and 
individual rights. Part of freedom and individual rights is the right 
of people to control their own creations, at least for a period of time 
in which they own that which they created. It is a precious right and 
as important to our society as any of the other rights Americans have 
enjoyed over these two hundred years, and now we have an unelected 
official, Bruce Lehman, making a secret deal with the Japanese, a deal 
that means that patent rights forever will be diminished for the 
American people, and we are supposed to accept that this will just be 
slipped through the system on a piece of legislation, the GATT 
implementation legislation in which it had no right to be in in the 
first place, and we had to vote yes on everything unless we wanted to 
say no in order to get that one little piece out.
  This is a crime in progress. It is a rip-off of historic magnitude, 
and I can swear to you tonight they will not get away with it. We will 
alert the American people. This Congress is alerted to it already, and 
one man will not stand in the way.


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