[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 40 (Tuesday, April 8, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1326-H1331]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             SOUNDING THE ALARM FOR AMERICA'S PATENT SYSTEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Manzullo). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Rohrabacher] is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, next Thursday, April 17, the House of 
Representatives will make a crucial decision, and this decision has yet 
to be covered by the mainstream news media of the United States. Thus, 
the American people are for the most part unaware of this oncoming 
threat to our country and to the well-being of our citizens.
  So let me sound the alarm bell, and that is what I am hoping to do 
tonight, sound the alarm bell. In the next few minutes I will be 
exposing a maneuver which, if successful, will do incredible long-term 
harm to the United States of America. Yet, at this moment, this 
legislation is being quietly maneuvered through the process and is 
likely to pass a vote in the House of Representatives and be made into 
law.
  What I am referring to is dramatic and fundamental changes that are 
being proposed to be made to America's patent system, a system of 
rights and government institutions that have ensured that the United 
States has been, since the founding of our country, a technological 
leader in the world; that our fellow Americans, basically, were the 
inventors of the reaper, the inventors of the telegraph, the inventors 
of the telephone, the inventors of the television and of the electric 
light and the airplane and the microprocessor, and the MRI and other 
marvelous health technologies that we enjoy today, that have made our 
life a quality life compared to what it was just a few short years ago. 
Those Americans were the ones who invented these fabulous technologies 
that changed the way of life for the people of this world and uplifted 
the standard of living of the American people. That was no mistake.
  We had patent laws and a patent system that protected the individual 
and made it profitable for investors to finance the development of new 
technologies. Written into our Constitution is the establishment of the 
patent office. Now, most people do not even understand that. They have 
no idea that we are any different than any other country of the world 
when it comes to technologies and inventions. They have no idea.
  They know that we are different than other countries in the world in 
that we have freedom of speech, that we have freedom of press, we have 
freedom of religion, and that we respect the rights of the individual, 
and that was the purpose of our Founding Fathers, to establish a 
government that would protect people's rights. Yes, people know that 
about the United States, but they do not know one of the major factors 
that have given them the standard of living, given our people the 
standard of living that they enjoy, that has meant that they have 
reasonable and decent lives, was the fact that there were other 
protections in our Constitution, protections for the rights of people 
who invented and created things, things that would improve our lives.
  From the earliest days of our Republic we had these protections and 
we had a patent office, actually part of our Federal Government since 
the time our Constitution was written. In fact, up until 2 years ago we 
had, as protected by law, by the United States law, all the way from 
our country's founding until 2 years ago, we had something that was 
called the guaranteed patent term.
  Now, what is that all about, a guaranteed patent term? Well, what a 
guaranteed patent term has been in the United States of America is 
something that has ensured that we have been the ones who invented all 
of these wonderful things. The guaranteed patent term, from the time of 
our Constitution until two years ago, was that when someone had 
invented something, when they went to apply for a patent, that 
inventor, once that inventor applied for the patent, no matter how long 
it took the patent to be issued, the inventor was guaranteed a certain 
patent, legal patent term. At first it was 14 years and then it was 
expanded over 100 years ago to be 17 years, so we have had a guaranteed 
patent term of 17 years.
  Now, what difference does that make, people will ask. Well, they did 
not have this in other countries. Inventors had their ideas stolen from 
them by very powerful people, and in fact, in other systems, it would 
be so mixed up in the bureaucracy, a person would never be granted a 
patent until 10 and 20 years after they applied. But in our country 
they knew that no matter how long it took a patent to be issued, they 
would have 17 years to recoup their investment.
  This meant that people invested in our country, the private sector 
invested in new inventions and new ideas, which made all of the 
difference in our standard of living. We did not have to rely on the 
government to invest in new technology development because we had 
people in the private sector who would seek out inventors and creative 
people and give them money voluntarily to try to provide them the 
resources they needed to invent the telephone.
  How different would our lives be today if the telephone had not been 
invented? How different would our lives be if these inventions that 
created the bountiful harvest of food in our country had not been 
invented? But private inventors sponsored by private investors did the 
job because they were guaranteed 17 years of protection.
  Well, 3 years ago, and I am sorry to inform those of you who are 
reading this for the first time or listening to this for the first 
time, 3 years ago our right to a guaranteed patent term, a right 
Americans have enjoyed since the founding of our country, was taken 
from us and taken from us in a very stealthy manner, so most of the 
American people have no idea that this right has been taken away and 
what the implications of that right are.
  The fact is that that right was taken away by a provision that was 
snuck into the GATT implementation legislation. That GATT 
implementation legislation of over 2 years ago now, 3 years ago 
actually, basically replaced the 17-year guaranteed patent term with an 
uncertain patent term. In fact, just a look at this issue from a 
distance, some people actually thought the patent term was being 
expanded and made longer.
  Instead, what happened was, 17 years of a guaranteed patent term was 
exchanged for a patent term which is called 20 years from filing, and 
it sounds like there would be even more protection. Nope, no. In fact, 
what this did was take a situation where you were guaranteed, you knew 
how much time you would have in a patent and you were guaranteed that 
as a right, and instead, because the clock was ticking against the 
bureaucracy and this deterred people from trying to interfere with the 
process, now we have replaced it with 20 years from filing.
  What that means is, once someone files for a patent, the clock is 
ticking against that person. The clock is ticking against the inventor, 
against the investor, and whatever time it takes is taken away from 
their time of protection, away from their property rights.

[[Page H1327]]

  This will be a dramatic decrease in the amount of money that is spent 
in the United States to develop new technologies, the technologies that 
will keep us the No. 1 leader in the world economically. These new 
technologies are the only things that permit us to out-compete the 
slave labor and the cheap labor overseas. It is the good technology 
that has permitted the American people to increase their standard of 
living. But no, now that has been taken away, or it was in the GATT 
implementation legislation which eliminated the guaranteed patent term.
  By the way, if someone's patent takes 15 years to issue, as many of 
our breakthrough technologies do, unimportant technologies issue very 
quickly, but things that make a difference, I mean billions of dollars 
of new wealth, that takes 10 years, 15 years sometimes, that means that 
for those 15 years foreign multinational corporations do not have to 
pay royalties into the pockets of our inventors.

                              {time}  2030

  That is 10 to 15 years that the money is going to be in their coffers 
instead of in the pockets of American inventors, instead of in the bank 
accounts of American citizens.
  I consider this act of sneaking this into the GATT implementation 
legislation to be a total betrayal of the people of the United States. 
I voted for fast track. Fast track, which is what permitted them to 
sneak this provision into the bill, basically permitted them to change 
the patent law.
  Let me explain how that worked. Fast track means that we as Members 
of Congress vote to give the right to the administration to negotiate a 
trade agreement with potential trading partners. The administration, in 
exchange for that agreement, that they can basically negotiate the 
agreement and bring it to Congress and put it before Congress, and we 
were only permitted up and down votes, that is what that fast track 
means, that we would only be permitted an up-or-down vote on this 
legislation that had been negotiated with our foreign trade partners.
  But in exchange for fast track, the administration had to agree to 
two things. No. 1, there would not be anything included in the 
implementation legislation brought to Congress. There would not be 
anything in that legislation except that which was required by GATT 
itself. No. 2, we would have ample time, 50 days, to look over the GATT 
agreement in order to make our decision.
  The administration waited until the last possible moment to put the 
GATT implementation legislation before Congress, just a few days before 
Congress was to adjourn, and they expected us, in I think it was 10 
days, to work on this and to basically approve it without having a 
chance to read it and look it over.
  One of the reasons we want to look it over is to find out what is in 
the GATT implementation legislation. Sure enough, there was a provision 
in that legislation that dramatically changed our patent rights. 
However, that provision was never required by the GATT agreement 
itself. In other words, that was not something that they had to put 
into the bill in order to be consistent with the GATT agreement they 
had made with our trading partners. Someone had snuck it into the bill.
  When I say snuck into the bill, I mean snuck into the bill. I got 
wind there was some change going to be made in our patent laws, so I 
began calling the Trade Representative and others in the 
administration, asking whether or not there was actually going to be a 
provision in the GATT implementation legislation that changed American 
patent law. I was told that I did not have a right to know.
  I, an elected representative of the people of the United States, as 
are the rest of my colleagues, and the administration told me I had no 
right to know what was going to be in a piece of legislation that was 
to be presented to the Congress of the United States? That is not only 
a betrayal, but an arrogant betrayal of the American people.
  Basically, Mr. Speaker, we ended up in a situation where the Members 
of Congress were forced to vote in favor of the GATT implementation 
legislation that included a major change, a fundamental change, in the 
protection of American technological rights. We were forced to vote on 
that as one package. In other words, we either accepted this drastic 
change, this drastic change in American patent law protection, or we 
had to vote against the entire world trading system. We had to isolate 
the United States from the entire world trading system.
  That was a betrayal, and I will never again vote for fast track 
authority going to this administration, under any circumstances. They 
lied that time, and I say lied, and that is exactly what this was, was 
a lie when they presented it to this body with a provision that was not 
mandated by the agreement itself. They lied when they said they would 
give us ample time to discuss the issue.
  During my efforts to basically return to the guaranteed patent term 
and to try to stop it from going through in the GATT process, I learned 
of an ongoing plan that was aimed at, and I hesitate to use these words 
but they are accurate, aimed at destroying, that is right, I said 
destroying, the American patent system.
  The American patent system, which has been the gem of our society, 
which has permitted us to develop technologies that will actually 
change our way of life and make our lives better as compared to other 
people around the world, the gem that has improved the life of the 
average person in our country as compared to the life of people in 
other countries, this gem is being destroyed.
  The patent system that gives us the technological edge is being 
destroyed in a very hushed and quiet manner, and it will come to a 
vote, the next step in this process, it will come to a vote on the 
floor.
  Mr. Speaker, here we are facing a very quiet maneuver, something that 
has been kept out of the mass media, something that the regular media, 
the news media in this country has not covered, that is going to make a 
dramatic change in America's fundamental technology and a dramatic 
change in our rights and a dramatic change in our standard of living. 
It will be something that over a long period of time will have a 
greater impact on our standard of living than our natural resources and 
the other great things that have made America such a wonderful country.
  When did this all start? It is going to come to a head on April 17 
when the Steal American Technologies Act, H.R. 400, comes to a vote on 
the floor of this House. About half of the Members of this House have 
no idea this bill is coming to a vote and have no idea what this bill 
is all about.
  Four years ago Bruce Lehman, the head of our Patent Office, went to 
Japan where he signed an agreement with the head of the Japanese Patent 
Office to harmonize America's patent laws with those of Japan. To put 
this in perspective, America's patent laws over the history of our 
country have been the strongest and most protective laws in the world. 
That is what gave America the edge. Yet Bruce Lehman, head of the 
American Patent Office, went there 4 years ago, signed an agreement, a 
hushed agreement I might add, which I did not find out about until 
years later, to harmonize our law.
  He was not signing the agreement to harmonize our law to bring 
Japanese protection up to the level of protection that is enjoyed and 
has been enjoyed by the people of the United States. Instead, what Mr. 
Lehman supposedly, representing the interests of the United States, 
signed was an agreement to make our system, our patent system, a carbon 
copy, a mirror image, of the Japanese system.
  Let us make sure this is understood. The changes that were agreed to 
by our representative were to make our strong protection a weak 
protection like they have in Japan. In Japan, Japanese economic shoguns 
beat their competition down ruthlessly. If you are not in the ``in'' 
clique, you have no rights. The Japanese economic shoguns who rule that 
society know they have leverage on people because the laws do not 
protect the individual in Japan. They are aimed at the collective good 
in Japan, and the individual rights that have been so much part of our 
system, they do not even think that way.

  That has permitted these powerful interests in Japan to keep an iron 
grip on that society. That is why it has been so difficult to open 
their markets

[[Page H1328]]

to American goods, because we were not dealing with their consumers who 
would want American products, we were dealing with Japanese powerful 
businessmen who know what power is all about and had used it in their 
own country.
  Now we are changing our laws, our patent laws, to harmonize with them 
so they can do to the American inventor and the American people over 
here what they have been doing to their own people for 100 years.
  What is worming its way through Congress is legislation that is 
implementing phase 2 of this notorious harmonization agreement. Phase 1 
of the agreement was, guess what; what do you think phase 1 was? Phase 
1 was the elimination of the guaranteed patent term, and the replacing 
of it with a system based on 20 years from filing, an uncertain term, 
which is the Japanese system. That was phase 1. That was what we got.
  Immediately they tried to implement this agreement with Japan by 
sneaking it into the GATT implementation legislation, and forcing 
Congress to either vote against the entire world trading system or 
ratifying this secret and hushed agreement with the Japanese.
  Phase 2 of that agreement with the Japanese is coming to the floor in 
one week, H.R. 400. How do I know? I know because H.R. 400 includes a 
provision that would destroy a vital protection of our law, our patent 
law, and replace it with a provision that comes directly from the 
Japanese code.
  The Japanese code said, you know, it is 20 years from filing instead 
of a guaranteed patent term of 17 years. We change it to that. What 
else does the Japanese code say? What is this provision? Hang onto your 
hats. If H.R. 400 passes, we, like the Japanese, will have a system, a 
legal system, that mandates that when our inventors invent something 
and go to apply for a patent, after 18 months, whether or not that 
patent has been issued, it is going to be published for the entire 
world to see.
  So if we have a system where breakthrough technologies, like the 
microprocessor or the MRI or the laser system, which took 20 years to 
get a patent, or polypropylene plastic which was a major breakthrough 
in the way we packaged things around the world, it took 20 years to get 
that patent issued, what is going to happen is after 18 months, whether 
or not the patent has been issued, every one of our technological 
secrets are going to be published for the entire world to see.
  What does that mean? That means our technological secrets will be 
used by our enemies to destroy us economically. People who hate 
America, people who want to destroy our way of life, people who want to 
bring down the standard of living of the American people will have our 
technological secrets. This is the elimination of a right that we have 
had as well.
  We had a right, from the founding of our Constitution, to a 
guaranteed patent term. That was eliminated by this sneaky maneuver in 
the GATT implementation legislation.
  Now H.R. 400 goes the second step and it eliminates what right? From 
the founding of our country until this bill, if it passes, we have had 
a right of confidentiality. When an inventor goes with his patent 
application to the Patent Office, he has had a right that none of that 
information will ever be published, will ever be published, until his 
patent is issued. Because once it is issued, he then has protection. He 
has legal rights, then, that will protect him, and he knows that his 
adversaries, economic adversaries, cannot steal from him and use his 
own ideas against him. This was a right our people had.
  Members have heard of industrial espionage. That espionage is that we 
do not want our adversaries to have our technological secrets. H.R. 400 
will come to the floor of the House of Representatives a week from 
Thursday, and it will, if passed, mandate that every one of our 
technological secrets will be published for our enemies to use against 
us. It will eliminate the right of confidentiality.
  If it does any good, I guess you can say they could probably use this 
as advocacy, it is certainly going to eliminate industrial espionage. 
Some laugh. This will be the first step in the destruction of America's 
ability to compete with other nations where they have cheap labor and 
slave labor. This will be the first step on the escalator down for the 
standard of living of the American people, and billions of dollars into 
the pockets of our worst enemies and competitors.

                              {time}  2045

  H.R. 400, I call it the Steal American Technologies Act, there are 
Members who are advocating this with a straight face and they are 
saying, if we published this, this will show our enemies what not to 
steal. Bruce Lehman, head of our patent office, last year was stopped 
short and believe me, it took all of our effort to do it, in his 
efforts to do what? What was his plan? He wanted to send the entire 
database of the patent office to China, the disk. He wanted to send our 
computer disk with the entire database of our patent office to China.
  That is like sending the worst thief in the world the combination of 
your safe and saying, we are just sending it to you so you will know 
what not to steal. By the way, that was what he said was the purpose of 
sending the database, so they would know what not to steal. Something 
is haywire here; something is haywire here. The news media in the 
United States is not covering it. The American people do not know about 
it. And H.R. 400 is being supported by an army of lobbyists from 
multinational and foreign corporations that are going to meet each and 
every Member of Congress to try to get them to vote for this heinous 
piece of legislation. Disclosing all of our secrets? Disclosing all of 
our technology?
  When this bill was first introduced, it had a different name. The 
name of the bill, now H.R. 400, is guess what? It is the 21st Century 
Patent Law Reform Act. Boy, does that sound positive. The 21st Century 
Patent Law Reform Act. What was this bill called when it was first 
introduced as 1733, which was 2 years ago? This bill, which was 
introduced by Carlos Moorhead and Pat Schroeder, was first called the 
Patent Publication Act. They were trying to sneak this through and they 
had no idea anybody was going to be on to it. That is what happened.
  It was called the Patent Publication Act, but it got too hot, because 
that is the real purpose of this bill. The real purpose of the bill is 
to force our system to harmonize with the Japanese system so you 
publicize this. You publicize this after 18 months, you publicize the 
patent application, but they say, that is all right, we are including 
in H.R. 400 the right of people to sue, to sue.
  If someone, when you have applied for a patent and your patent is 
published and some Japanese huge corporation or Chinese, like the 
Chinese army has these big companies now that steal our stuff over in 
China, if they start using your technology, then you can sue them once 
your patent is issued. That is what right they have given us. So sue 
me.
  Can you imagine small American inventors trying to go up against 
these corporate giants, these corporate gangsters in these 
dictatorships like China or Vietnam or these corporate goons over in 
Japan?
  So now these people who are trying to push this bill through, who 
have hired lobbyists to come and see your Member of Congress, my Member 
of Congress, everybody's Member of Congress being visited by these 
lobbyists, they are doing everything they can to pass the bill. And 
when you ask them, why are you supporting this bill, people call up 
their offices, after they have heard about how horrible it is. Every 
inventor in the United States is desperate to stop this bill. They are 
desperate. They know what this will mean.
  So when people call up their Congressman and they say, why are you 
supporting this bill, I notice that you are supporting this H.R. 400, 
the Steal American Technologies Act, and the Member of Congress says, 
oh, just like the authors of the bill, they have been told that this is 
what they say, they talk about some really nice reforms in the bill.
  There are a few here that are pretty good things in H.R. 400. They 
talk about, for example, ensuring that patent fees are retained in the 
patent office to make the patent office better and allowing the patent 
office to hire new employees, for example, and to protect inventors 
against fraud from phony advertising, sort of a truth in labeling type 
provision. That is all in H.R. 400. By the way, I support those

[[Page H1329]]

reforms. Those are very good reforms. But those are minor changes 
compared to what the real intent of the legislation is. They are 
figleafs. They are covers. They are a facade for something evil that is 
about to go on in this body.
  It is like giving someone a bouquet of beautiful flowers. You have 
handed someone a bouquet of beautiful flowers. Then the proponents of 
the legislation hand the bouquet of beautiful flowers, and you are very 
happy. I have this bouquet of beautiful flowers. But then you happen to 
notice there are snakes in the bouquet. This bouquet is crawling with 
snakes as well as flowers. Well, you say, well, by the way, are these 
snakes poisonous?
  They say, let me talk about the flowers, see how beautiful the 
flowers are here in this bouquet. No, I want to know if the snakes are 
poisonous because I do not want to hold on to it. Look at that 
beautiful rose in the bouquet. Why are you talking about snakes when 
you can look at the rose?
  I do not want to take this home to my family. These snakes are 
poisonous. They will kill my children.
  Do not think about that. Look at the beautiful flowers. Let me tell 
you about all the flowers.
  That is what is going on with H.R. 400. They are talking about 
beautiful flowers, when the bouquet is filled with poisonous snakes. 
One of the snakes is mandating publication so that everybody in the 
world can steal it, steal our technology, steal our ideas and use them 
against us. That is a snake.
  I had an industrialist in my office, a guy who ran a small solar 
energy company. And when this piece of legislation went through 
committee, and it has already gone through committee, he said, 
Congressman, if they mandate that I publish all of my patent 
applications, what is going to happen is they are going to use my 
patent applications, then will use all of the things that I have spent 
money for, millions of dollars to develop. They are going to go into 
production in Japan with my ideas, and all the money that they make 
from producing my technology they will use against me to defeat me in 
court and to steal my technology from me in court. They will be using 
my ideas and my innovation and my development to destroy me. That is a 
real snake. That is a real poisonous snake. That is what is going to be 
happening if H.R. 400 passes. That is a threat to our future.
  H.R. 400 is the Steal American Technologies Act. But by the way, that 
snake that I just described, that is about new patents. If that was not 
bad enough, let me mention another snake that we have found hidden in 
the bouquet of flowers. I did not find this until recently when we had 
legal minds go over this bill with a fine-tooth comb, with a 
microscope.
  What did we find? Another snake hidden among the flowers. That is 
that current patent owners, you see, the one I was just talking about 
where you have to publish your patent application, that only dealt with 
future technology. Current patent owners in the United States of 
America are going to find that there are provisions in this bill that 
opens them up to challenge by these huge corporate interests and by 
foreign and multinational corporations. In other words, once their 
patent has already been issued to Americans, we are going to find these 
huge corporate entities overseas coming in and filing court cases and 
challenging American patents that have already been issued.

  Today it is very limited, very limited scope as to what you can 
challenge someone who owns a patent. They do not want it brought up 
again and again and again. What H.R. 400 does is open it up to a 
panoply of issues that you can bring before a court. Every one of our 
patent owners is going to be put in jeopardy. All of our current 
technology will be put in jeopardy. Not just the future, not just 
publication but current technology.
  It is going to be challenged by the big boys of the world, both 
foreign and domestic.
  There is a snake. There is a snake for you. How about another snake 
that we found in the bouquet of H.R. 400. Another snake is the snake 
that would permit these very same interests to interfere with a patent 
applicant as the process is moving. Once they find out, once they find 
out what he is up to because it has been published, they could actually 
go into the process and interfere with the process. That is what we 
found out. Can you imagine that. We are opening up, our own people are 
going to be cut off by the biggest people in the world. They will 
probably make a little change in the patent and then go in and try to 
interfere with the process. That is a real snake. That is a snake to 
everybody.
  What about publication, what happens? By the way, one thing you have 
to understand, if the patent is not issued and you have then published 
it after 18 months, what happens if the patent is never issued. That 
means our American inventors are putting their heart and soul and 
investment in something and it does not pan out and the patent is not 
issued, what happens is everybody in the world knows all of their work. 
And if the patent is never issued, they have no rights whatsoever to 
sue anybody who is using their information.
  Mr. Speaker, all of this was confidential before. It only became 
public up until this bill, if it passes, for since the founding of our 
country this has all been confidential information.
  By the way, there is one big snake in this H.R. 400 Steal American 
Technologies Act, one big snake in the bouquet that I have not 
mentioned. It is probably the biggest snake of all. And it is so easy 
to see that proponents of the bill have had to go a long way to try to 
disguise it. Basically for the first 200 years of our country, since 
our Constitution, the Patent Office has been part of the U.S. 
Government. We have had patent examiners. Patent examiners make quasi-
judicial decisions that determine who owns technology that represents 
billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars. These people, they 
have had to be cleaner than judges because they determine ownership of 
technology, of property, of what will become money, of wealth.
  These stalwart public employees at the Patent Office, these patent 
examiners, have been shielded from outside influences because they have 
been Government employees. Do my colleagues know what? In 200 years of 
this country's history, there has never been a scandal, never been a 
scandal with these patent examiners. The patent examiners have never 
been through scandals that have gone through many other different parts 
of our Government, because they have been shielded. They have been 
protected from outside influences.
  And what does H.R. 400 do to the Patent Office that has been part of 
the U.S. Government since our country's founding? It obliterates it. It 
destroys it. It eliminates it. That is it. It takes the Patent Office 
and turns it into a corporate entity, a corporate entity. Maybe 
something like the Post Office. They do this in the name of 
privatization.
  I am here to say that I am a Ronald Reagan conservative, I look at 
privatization as a very good thing. But there are core functions of 
government, the court system, our military, core functions of 
government, institutions that are set up to protect our individual 
rights, and you do not leave that in the hands of a corporate elite. 
You do not corporatize that. That is a legitimate function of 
government.
  Mr. Speaker, they want to take the Patent Office and turn it into a 
corporate structure with a private board of directors made up of, and 
it is mandated in H.R. 400, to be made up of people with a business and 
financial background, meaning corporate leaders of this country will 
appoint who is the head of the Patent Office and oversee the policies 
of the Patent Office. And what effect will this corporatization have on 
this, on the honesty and the protection of our patent examiners from 
outside influences?
  All I can say is that part of H.R. 400 is a provision that permits 
this new entity, this corporate entity, the Patent Office becomes a 
corporatized entity, permits that entity to accept corporate gifts, 
private and corporate gifts from foreign companies, from domestic 
companies. It permits this entity which will determine who owns what 
technology to accept gifts from the people who it is having to decide 
on who owns what. This is beyond belief, taking our patent examiners 
and subjecting them to who knows what outside influences by who knows 
who.
  More than that, the new corporate entity will be able to float bonds 
so

[[Page H1330]]

that they can build huge palaces. This is one of the things that Bruce 
Lehman would like to do. He wants to build a huge new patent building. 
And by the way, if the new Patent Office corporatization does not have 
the money for some reason, well, the taxpayers are the ones who have to 
meet the obligation if those bonds that are floated by this corporate 
entity are not repaid.
  H.R. 400 is the Steal American Technologies Act. It has already gone 
through subcommittee, passed I think by voice vote, went through 
committee. I think it passed by either voice vote or a close-to-
unanimous vote.

                              {time}  2100

  It has already passed through these committees and there is an army 
of lobbyists in the Nation's Capital, hired by multinational and 
foreign corporations as well as some of our own domestic corporations, 
who are here trying to basically do what they have a right to do, which 
is influence the vote of Members of Congress.
  The administration is behind this piece of legislation. They are 
backing it. Of course, this is the same administration which has been 
compromised by receiving campaign donations from Chinese interests, 
from Communist Chinese interests, I might add, by some of the same 
people we could expect to steal the American technology as soon as it 
was published. But the administration is backing it.
  So we have these forces at play. These forces are working right now 
and this bill will pass unless the American people personally get 
involved. This is the way it has always been when there has been a 
threat to our well-being. Unless the American people get involved, the 
Government can go in the wrong direction. Unless people actually call 
their Member of Congress and say, for goodness sakes, oppose H.R. 400, 
the Steal American Technologies Act, and please support the bill, H.R. 
811, Congressman Rohrabacher's bill, and H.R. 812, a bill which will 
reaffirm, it is called the Patent Term Restoration Act, reaffirm and 
strengthen patent protection in America. It is diametrically opposed to 
H.R. 400.
  What we have now are my bill, which would strengthen the patent 
office, and H.R. 812. H.R. 811, my bill, which would strengthen the 
American patent protection, over here, versus a piece of legislation, 
H.R. 400, that would destroy our patent protection as we know it and 
destroy the patent office.
  They are coming to a head on the floor of the House a week from 
Thursday. What will happen is my vote will come as a substitute motion, 
which means it will be a vote either for H.R. 811 and 812 or for H.R. 
400. If H.R. 400 passes, gets the higher number of votes, it will be 
passed into law, and I believe it will pass through the U.S. Senate.
  As I say, it will have dramatic repercussions. It will be, and I 
honestly believe, be a Pearl Harbor in slow motion. Our standard of 
living, our way of life will be attacked and 20 years from now people 
will never know, will never know what hit them.
  It was just 100 years ago when two young Americans decided that they 
would set out to discover the secrets of manned flight. Two young 
Americans, Orville and Wilbur Wright. They did not have a lot of 
education, but they had freedom and they were Americans and they had a 
dream. They owned this bicycle shop in Ohio and they read everything 
they could get their hands on.
  Perhaps more than any other Americans, these two young men 
represented the spirit of what our country was and hopefully always 
will be all about. Orville and Wilbur there in their bicycle shop, 
reading and writing letters to people all over the world, struggling to 
find, to discover that secret, the secret that would permit all of 
mankind to soar, to soar into the heavens like birds, like meteors.
  They worked hard. They had very little money. They had investors. 
They did have investors, and their investors knew if they discovered 
this, there would be a time period when their secret would become 
profitable. They would discover the secret and they would be able to 
make some return on their money. That is why people invested in them. 
Orville and Wilbur knew they would have a 17-year guaranteed patent 
term and they also knew their secrets, what they discovered would be 
kept secret until their patent was issued.
  These two young Americans did what the crown heads of Europe and the 
huge empires around the world could not do. The Kaiser could not do it. 
The French, the English crown could not discover the secret, the 
technology that would permit man to soar like the birds, to fly into 
the heavens. All they had was their enthusiasm and their freedom.
  I visited Kitty Hawk, NC, last year, and it is one of the most 
inspiring sites that I can imagine. I would recommend that to anyone 
who is listening or reading this in the Congressional Record. Kitty 
Hawk talks about the indomitable spirit of the American people. They 
had an indomitable spirit because they lived in a society that 
protected creators. It protected investors. It protected innovators.
  It protected the likes of Orville and Wilbur Wright, normal, common, 
everyday Americans, rather than a legal system that protected the elite 
like they have had in Japan, or the elite in Europe and the other 
countries from which our forefathers and mothers fled to the new world 
to live a new life and to live in freedom.
  So the people like Orville and Wilbur were able to dream great 
dreams, and one day, and after years of failure and trying again and 
trying again, they did it. They discovered the secret, and the secret 
for them was the shape of the wing. It was the shape of the wing that 
they had not seen before that permitted them to understand lift; that 
managed to take mankind off of the ground on the windy shores of Kitty 
Hawk, NC, and catapulted mankind into a new era.
  Here we are, less than 100 years later, less than 100 years after 
that first flight, and look how this has changed our way of life. Look 
what their discovery has meant for the United States of America. Their 
discovery has meant that we have built a tremendous aerospace industry 
that not only took man to the moon but has facilitated jet air travel 
throughout this planet, and has uplifted the standard of living not 
only of the people who work for the aerospace industry, who have good 
paying jobs, but everybody else who is able to enjoy the goods and 
services and visits that we have learned to expect as Americans, as 
part of our way of life and our freedom to travel.
  What would have happened if Orville and Wilbur Wright would have had 
to publish their secret before that patent was issued? Would there have 
been a Mitsubishi Corp. who would take their invention and create an 
aerospace industry in Japan, while at the same time using their money 
and resources to destroy Orville and Wilbur Wright and destroy them in 
our own court system?
  If H.R. 400 would have been in place, what would have happened was 
that the Japanese would have had all their secrets, and before that 
patent was issued the Mitsubishi Corp. could actually have come and 
interfered with their right to get the patent. It could put a challenge 
on if the patent had already been issued. It could have tied up these 
little guys from Ohio and tied them in knots, and they could have used 
the resources from the Wright brothers' own discovery, the wealth that 
was created by this new knowledge, to destroy the Wright brothers.
  Now, that is only one example. That is only one example of how 
technology and the protection of technology will directly affect our 
standard of living. Hundreds of thousands of people work in the 
aerospace industry in the United States today. Good high-paying jobs. 
That is because it was started with Orville and Wilbur Wright. It was 
because our creators and innovators have had that protection. And now 
we are trying to harmonize our system with the Japanese law. We cannot 
stand by as free people and let this happen. We cannot let it happen.

  We cannot let our own huge corporate interests, who are pushing this 
bill, and they are all of the big companies now thinking that we have 
to pass this bill. Because of what? They call it globalism. They say 
that we are entering in this new era of global harmony. Well, Lord 
protect us from those people who would perfect all of the people of the 
world. Because usually these idealists who want to create a perfect 
world end up causing great damage to the people of the United States of 
America,

[[Page H1331]]

to our rights and to our liberty and to our way of life.
  Globalism, this thought that has captured the imagination of our 
corporate leadership, now is being used as an excuse to do things that 
will hurt the standard of living of the American people and will reduce 
the protections and the legal rights of our people.
  This patent maneuver is just one example of that. It is maybe the 
first easily defined and easily described example of that. We cannot 
permit the corporate interests, who basically have the right to live 
here and enjoy the protection that the American people have given them, 
and they use their investments to go overseas to countries like China 
and create factories, perhaps even based on the technology they have 
stolen from their fellow Americans, we cannot permit this to happen so 
that our wealth and our technology and our ideas are used against the 
United States of America in the name of some global concepts.
  It is not globalism they want. They are putting that money in their 
own pocket. They know that and they are justifying that sellout of the 
American people by talking about globalism.
  I have not met any corporate leaders who come into my office and told 
me about the big meetings they have had with their Chinese leaders on 
the mainland of China about human rights. They always talk about how 
most-favored-nation status and trading with the Chinese is going to 
bring about more liberalization on the mainland of China and more 
respect for human rights, and yet they have never spoken to the red 
Chinese bosses themselves about human rights. I guess they think it is 
osmosis that will create these ideal flows.
  Well, I know those people who were sitting in my office trying to get 
me to vote for most-favored-nation status were really interested in a 
20-percent return on their investment rather than investing in the 
United States of America and getting only a 5- to 10-percent return. I 
know that is what it is all about. That is fine. If I can vote against 
it, I will, but I understand where they are coming from.
  What is happening with H.R. 400, they have convinced themselves, the 
corporate leaders have convinced themselves that they are creating this 
new global economy, and that they can basically bring down the level of 
protection for American citizens and it will not bother them at all 
because they are creating this new global economy which will be better 
for everybody.
  No. Their real purpose is to put more money in their pocket and to 
excuse every dastardly act that they need to do to make that money, 
even if they are making deals with the worst butchers in the world. The 
people of Tibet could be totally incinerated tomorrow, millions of 
them, and our corporate elite would still want to have most-favored-
nation status with China.
  Where does this all fit in with, of course, the campaign donations 
made to this administration? Where does it fit in with the subject of 
patents? It is the Red Chinese as well as the Japanese and other 
copycats around the world who are going to use our technology. They are 
going to have the benefits, these monster regimes will have the 
benefits of all the innovations and creative ideas before our own 
people are even issued the patent.
  That is what H.R. 400 is trying to do. H.R. 400, the Steal American 
Technologies Act, will give them all that even before the patents are 
issued. We cannot let that happen. And we can stop it. The lobbyists 
can be defeated if people let their Member of Congress know that they 
are opposed to H.R. 400, the Steal American Technologies Act, and want 
their representatives to vote for the Rohrabacher alternative, H.R. 811 
and 812. They can be stopped.
  Whether it is Orville or Wilbur or whether it is Tom Edison, or 
whether we are talking about the people that have come up with the 
ideas and fought the wars, the people who have built the churches, the 
people who teach in our schools, the people who make this country what 
it is, a great and wonderful country, and have defended this country, 
these are ordinary American people. These are people who have come here 
from every part of the world to live in freedom, and not to have our 
laws harmonized downward with the laws that they came here to escape. 
They came here because this was going to be a better place, where 
individual rights of all citizens would be protected. The ordinary 
people of the United States of America. People who are not rich.
  Both of my parents were raised on farms. Homesteads. My dad was a 
marine who fought in World War II. I spent 10 years as a journalist 
before I got involved in politics, and I did not make much money. It is 
ordinary people that will save our Republic. It is ordinary people that 
have saved and preserved our freedom, and this is one of those 
occasions when the ordinary people of the United States have got to 
make their will felt or we will see our freedom diminished and we will 
pay a price in the long run.
  I am confident that a week from Thursday when this vote comes, that 
good will triumph and American freedom will be preserved because the 
people will speak and they will not let down the Orville and Wilbur 
Wrights of the past. They will not let down the patriots of bygone 
eras, and they will not let, in the name of some global concept, our 
rights as Americans to be diminished and to be frittered away by an 
elite that seems to have lost their patriotism and their direction and 
their moral values.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

{time}  2115

                          ____________________