[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 82 (Thursday, June 6, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H5983-H5984]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           PATENT LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr.

[[Page H5984]]

Rohrabacher] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, in the next 2 weeks a vital issue will 
be coming to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote. We 
will be deciding whether or not America will continue to have a strong 
patent system or whether our country will obliterate what has been the 
strongest patent system in the world.
  Because the patent legislation is by its very nature a complicated 
concept, powerful forces have been able to undermine America's patent 
system with very little public attention. Who is opposed to a strong 
patent system, someone might ask. Well, how about foreign powers that 
do not like the United States being the dominant economic and military 
power in the world? Yes, foreign powers do not like a strong American 
patent system because they do not want us to have what is America's 
greatest economic and competitive edge, the genius of our own people 
being brought to play in the marketplace. Especially countries in Asia 
which tend to, instead of create new ideas, copy; they instead copy 
American ideas. These powers in Asia would prefer that America's patent 
system be weakened.
  Those are the people who might have an interest in weakening 
America's patent system, also multinational corporations who have 
little or no loyalty to the American people. These huge corporate 
interests who also would like to use the ideas of ordinary Americans 
and not have to pay royalties to the inventors. These people have an 
interest in weakening America's patent protection as part of what they 
view as a global evolution in terms of the marketplace. They want to 
have a global marketplace, and they see the weakening of America's 
patent system as part of that.
  You see, consistent with this idea, the head of America's patent 
office 3 years ago, his name is Bruce Lehman, went to Japan and agreed 
to harmonize America's patent law with Japanese law. What they did is 
agree to make America's patent law, which had been the strongest in the 
world in the protection of individual rights, they had agreed to 
totally change our system and make it exactly like the Japanese system. 
It was a sellout of the interests of the American people.
  The first step in Lehman's harmonization scheme has already been 
implemented through this body. As part of the GATT implementation 
legislation, a provision was included in the GATT implementation 
legislation that was not required by the GATT treaty itself. They knew 
when they put this provision in changing our basic patent law that then 
those of us opposed to weakening our patent system would have to vote 
against the entire world trading system in order not to vote to change 
America's patent law. They had their way and they won.

  However, during my battle against that provision, the House 
leadership agreed that I would have a chance on the floor of the House 
to change this provision back because it was not required by GATT. And 
that is what will be happening in a few weeks from now. H.R. 359, my 
bill, which is designed to restore the patent, the length of the patent 
term, the guaranteed patent term that we have had, to Americans that we 
had for 130 years until this agreement with Japan, will be on the floor 
as a substitute to another bill.
  That bill, H.R. 3460, is a bill which is coming to the floor under 
the guise of patent reform. That bill, my colleagues, is what I call 
the steal American technologies act. It must be defeated if America is 
to remain the No. 1 technological power in the world. This bill, I will 
give you, would complete the process of harmonizing our patent system 
to be like Japan's. To show how transparent it is, let us take a look 
at just two provisions of H.R. 3460, the steal American technologies 
act.
  First, it would require all Americans who apply for a patent, whether 
or not they have been issued the patent, after 18 months their entire 
application, every last detail of their invention, of their idea would 
be published for the entire world to see and the entire world to steal. 
Who could defend an idea like that? But that is being presented to us 
as patent reform, and the people that are behind this are hoping the 
Members of Congress will not ask about the details.
  The second provision in H.R. 3460 is a measure to basically destroy 
the Patent Office, turning it into a private post office-like 
corporation, stripping our patent examiners of all of their Civil 
Service protection so they can be influenced by the other side.
  It is imperative we defeat H.R. 3460. I would ask my colleagues to 
join me in voting to substitute H.R. 359 for H.R. 3460. Stop the steal 
American technologies act.

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