[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 28 (Thursday, March 6, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H786-H787]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             PATENT REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Forbes] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about something that 
really is pure Americana. It is important enough that it is noted in 
the U.S. Constitution. I refer to the U.S. patent which is the backbone 
of the United States economy, the basis for our dominant place in the 
world economy, and clearly the key to a more prosperous economic 
future. Invention is certainly pure Americana.
  As I have said, by offering the strongest patent protections in the 
world the United States has stimulated more creativity, more new 
industries and tens of millions of more new jobs than anywhere else in 
the world throughout all of our history. Yet the small independent 
inventors, the future Graham Bells, the Edisons, the Henry Ford, are 
now having to fight tooth and nail to maintain their constitutional 
right to their intellectual property. It is slowly, slowly being stolen 
out from them by the mega corporations and foreign interests. Truly, 
intellectual property in the United States is under dire threat. The 
system we have in place may not be perfect, but at least the small 
independent inventor has a fighting chance against the larger 
multinational corporations.
  A perfect illustration, Mr. Speaker, of the importance of saving our 
patent system is the very true story of Dr. Raymond Damadian of Long 
Island and the inventor of the MRI. It has taken Dr. Damadian, who is a 
physician at the Down State Medical Center in Brooklyn, some 25 years 
to uphold the patent he received back in 1970, and that is with the 
protections of the U.S. Constitution. In June 1970, Dr. Damadian 
discovered the different types of tissues taken from rats emit 
different signals when placed in a nuclear magnetic resonance 
spectrometer. Not only that, but cancerous tissues taken from the rats 
emit significantly different NMR signals. It immediately occurred to 
Dr. Damadian that if it were possible to create a large enough and 
powerful enough scanner to contain a human, it would be possible to 
detect cancer very early on.
  Less than 2 years later, Dr. Damadian filed the pioneer patent 
application that really was the world's first MRI, a patent application 
that

[[Page H787]]

came from Dr. Damadian right from Long Island. Two years later, back in 
1974, he received that patent from the U.S. Patent Office in 
Washington. By July 1977, Dr. Damadian and his assistants achieved the 
world's first whole body human MRI image. In March 1978, Dr. Damadian 
formed a company called FONAR and began to develop and market MRI 
scanners and, within 2 years, unveiled the world's first commercial MRI 
scanner.
  The problem Dr. Damadian encountered was not really from the U.S. 
Patent Office, but in fact it was a failure by them to enforce his 
ownership of that patent. Eleven years after Dr. Damadian unveiled the 
world's first commercial MRI, his patent became infringed upon by 
several international corporations including Johnson & Johnson, General 
Electric, and Hitachi. For those who do not know, I mean by 
infringement that Dr. Damadian's patent technology for the MRI, the 
intellectual property that he owned, was basically copied by these 
large corporations.
  Well, 25 years later, after literally millions of dollars in legal 
expenses, Dr. Damadian has finally won his day in court. He was judged 
by the courts to in fact be the rightful owner of the patent for the 
MRI. FONAR, a Long Island corporation, could today be clearly a 
corporation that would have retained and employed tens of thousands of 
Long Islanders were it not for the 25 years of legal maneuvers that 
kept Dr. Damadian tied up in court.
  Mr. Speaker, again I think it is important to understand that the 
U.S. patent is really pure Americana. It is at the heart of American 
ingenuity and our ability, frankly, to remain No. 1 in the global 
marketplace. But afoot here in the Congress is something that has been 
evolving over the last several years, and that is to harmonize patents, 
to take American ingenuity and harmonize it to the lowest common 
denominator.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this chance to talk about the MRI and Dr. 
Damadian's important contributions.

                          ____________________