[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 22 (Tuesday, February 10, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H908-H914]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TECHNOLOGICAL GENIUS, FREEDOM--AND THE AMERICAN PATENT SYSTEM
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague,
who has just presented a heartfelt case for scientific and health-
related research by the National Institutes of Health. I concur with
him that this is a very important part of what we do here. We have
budgets that we have to meet, but this should be a significant part of
our budget.
I would like to also note, as I did when he yielded to me, that, yes,
the government needs to play a significant part--the National
Institutes of Health--in trying to find cures and in trying to find
ways of improving the health of the American people. It is not just up
to the National Institutes of Health, and it is not just up to the
government employees. My approach, which I will be talking about
tonight, is something vital--that the private sector needs to be
involved not only in this type of health innovation, but in all sorts
of innovation and technological jumps forward that some people think
only government can do; but, in fact, it is the private sector and,
especially, the small, independent inventors who have played such a
significant role in furthering human progress, in uplifting humankind.
{time} 2015
So while I agree with the government role especially in these health-
related issues, I think that we should dedicate ourselves to making
sure that private money is going into this.
In my area, yes, the University of California at Irvine is doing
exemplary work. Yes, but so are many private companies that have
invested money in health care technology development. Some of them, I
might add, have been taxed to death by a 2.5 percent tax on their gross
simply for being the inventors of health-related technologies.
This type of medical device tax, which makes the manufacturers of
devices the most heavily taxed people in this country, is a deterrent
to having people in the private sector investing in exactly what my
colleague was trying to suggest--into new approaches to these various
diseases. That is also true not only of medical technology but of
technologies across the board that really impact on the well-being and
on the standard of living of ordinary people throughout our country.
I rise today to draw attention, my colleagues, to a legislative
threat to the safety and well-being of the American people. We dodged a
bullet in the last session of Congress on this very same issue.
Alerted by our aggressive yet unsuccessful attempt to stop that
effort--that rancorous legislation in the House, which passed by a
large majority last time around--we raised such a ruckus that the
Senate was inundated with a wide spectrum of opposition to this
supposed reform that had passed the House. There was so much
opposition, in fact, that the Senate simply refused to bring up the
bill for consideration.
What is the issue that is being rammed through the House right now
and, once we exposed it the last time around, caused the Senate to turn
back and to not let it go through? Well, there has been an ongoing
fight here in Washington--one most of the public is totally unaware of,
and worse than that, most of my colleagues are totally unaware of--that
for the last 20 years there has been a classic case of crony capitalism
that plagues our country at play here on a specific issue.
The big guys--the big crony capitalists--are trying to diminish the
rights of the little guy in order to make more money. Surprise,
surprise. And in this case, it will basically undermine America's
prosperity and security in the long run while hurting the little guys
while the big guys get their way.
I am certainly not opposed to the profit motive, but first and
foremost we need to ensure that powerful forces don't change the
economic rules in order to enrich themselves unjustly.
Unseen by most Americans has been the attempt by mega-multinational
corporations to undermine and yes, destroy a constitutional right of
our citizens, this in order to fill their pockets at the expense of
American citizens who don't have the means to defeat such a power play.
I am referring to an attack on the fundamental constitutional right
of Americans to own what they have created. This right, written into
our law at the Constitutional Convention itself, which wrote our
Constitution, is now under attack. It is a clandestine legal maneuver
that would neuter our inventors' protections and permit powerful
multinational corporations to steal what now rightfully belongs to
American inventors, and thus, ordinary Americans will be hurt, and of
course, the big corporations will benefit.
It is not just dispossessing individual inventors; this is a power
grab that will undermine the prosperity we all have enjoyed as
Americans. The less than forthright attack on our patent system will
undermine the economic well-being of our working people who depend on
the United States for being technologically superior to the working
people of other societies. People in all these societies work very
hard. It is not hard work--it is hard work coupled with technology--and
we have ensured through the patent system that we would be developing
the technology that would give Americans the edge.
Our Founding Fathers believed that technology, freedom, and yes, the
profit motive was the formula that would uplift humankind. As I say,
they wrote into our Constitution a guarantee of the property rights of
inventors and authors. It is the only place in the body of our
Constitution that the word ``right'' is actually used.
The Bill of Rights was added after the body of the Constitution, but
in article I, section 8, clause 8 of our Constitution, it states:
The Congress shall have power to . . . promote the progress
and science of useful arts by securing for limited times to
authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective
writings and discoveries.
This provision has served America well. It has led to a general
prosperity where we have technological advances that uplift our own
people and give our own people the chance to outcompete those people
who work their hearts out overseas but don't have the same
technological support system in their economic endeavors.
Well, this provision in America has led to prosperity. It has helped
our national security. The fact is, we could never dream of trying to
defeat the enemies of freedom throughout the world on a man-to-man
basis. It is only our ability to be able to bring technology and our
genius to play that has given us a leverage over countries that have
tens of millions of people and, by the way, don't really value human
life.
We need to make sure we are technologically superior, and it has been
our patent system that has given our inventors the chance to invent
things that will protect all of us from aggression and prevent anti-
democratic forces throughout the world--fanatic forces--from
overwhelming us and overwhelming our defenses.
Of course, this having been the country of new ideas, the country
where we encouraged people to be innovative, we have uplifted the life
of average people. Average people here are now able to live decent
lives as compared to the average people in so many countries of the
world.
Yes, Americans work hard and, as I say, so do other people. It is the
technology that makes the difference. Our technology has multiplied the
results of the hard work of our people. That is the secret of America's
success. Technology and freedom and our strong patent system is right
there at the foundation of that principle. It is what has made the
difference in this vital area to our security and our well-being.
Yet today, we have these multinational corporations--the same ones
who run overseas to do business with communist China and with America's
enemies and people who treat their populations with total disregard--
yes, these multinational corporations want to diminish the patent
protection of the American people because they don't want to pay
Americans for their creative new technologies. They don't want to give
them their share when they create something that will uplift our
people.
Over the years, we fought and turned back many efforts to weaken our
patent system. I doubt whether half the
[[Page H909]]
new Members of this Congress are fully aware of the aggressive and
brutal fights that we have been in over patents and the patent system
over these last 20 years.
A little over 20 years ago, they were saying we need to change the
patent system in order to harmonize it with the rest of the world. Our
patent system was out of sync with the rest of the world. Well, of
course. Our constitutional rights are out of sync with the rest of the
world. We are out of sync as we protect people's right to go to church
and not be repressed by some other religion. We are out of sync with
most of the world when we protect people's right to speak and to
criticize their government or to assemble or to try to join unions or
other activities in the economic area.
No, we actually are out of sync with a lot of areas, but they decided
to say we need to harmonize our law on patents with the rest of the
world, which has weak patent systems. Their laws have been determined
by, basically, what is going to help the big guy and what is going to
get new ideas out into the hands of the big industrialists.
Well, we have beat back major efforts. The first ones, as I say, were
on harmonizing the law. They had two big issues. One was to harmonize
our law with the rest of the world.
Our system has been that when someone submits their patent, no matter
how long it takes for that patent to get issued, it is secret. In fact,
it is a felony, I believe, for someone at the Patent and Trademark
Office to disclose a patent application. And then, when you get your
patent, it is published to the world, but you are granted 17 years of
ownership.
Well, their goal was what? Their goal was to do it the European and
Japanese way, which is--aha--after 18 months of applying for your
patent, it is published. If you don't have it, or even if it takes
another 5, 10 years to get it, it is published.
I called it the Steal American Technologies Act. We managed to turn
that one around.
The other half of that particular onslaught was that we have now a
guaranteed protection, as I said, in the Constitution, as I just read.
For a specific period of time, we were granted a 17-year patent
protection. That starts at the time when you are issued your patent.
Well, overseas that is not what it is all about. We are out of sync
with them because what happens is, the minute that you file, the clock
starts ticking, and 20 years later you have no patent protection at
all, but that is from filing. It may take you 10 or 15 years to get
your patent.
So they are dramatically reducing the ownership rights of the patent
of a person who has applied for a patent, all to the benefit, of
course, of these big guys who are saying, We can speed this up maybe
with our contacts. And the little guys overseas over and over again get
beaten up and their material stolen from them by these powerful forces.
We don't want that to happen here. We protect the rights of the little
guy here.
We won those fights that I was just talking about by standing tall
and tough on the issue. And yes, there were some compromises over the
years where we beat those first two issues that I talked about, we won
that case, but over the years there have been several other hard-fought
patent battles where we compromised and were able to come up with
something that was acceptable to both sides.
Well, now, after a few years of preparing the political battleground
in Washington, and now, after Google has provided more campaign
contributions than any other corporation in the world on various issues
and we have other big corporations providing big campaign
contributions--and I am not saying they are buying votes, but what they
are buying is attention; and people don't even know about the issue--
but now, Google has been able to explain their case. They don't hear
the other side.
That is why it is up to us to make sure every Member of Congress
knows what the issue is when it comes to the patent fight, instead of
walking down to the floor unaware of how significant this is.
There is only one group of people that is going to be able to make
sure their Congressman is focused on just how significant this issue
is. The American people have to notify their Congressmen in order to
let them know we should not be weakening our patent system.
There is no excuse to undermine the independent inventor when he is
trying to protect his rights to a patent. We won't have independent
inventors, and we won't be on the cutting edge of change, as we have
been.
After a few years of preparing, as I say, a new onslaught has been
prepared.
Now, as I say, they claimed in the beginning that they wanted to
harmonize our system, but, of course, we don't want to harmonize and
make our system weaker in order to be the same with other countries.
So that fight went back over 20 years, but now what they have laid
the groundwork for and are bringing up is--in the last 3 years we have
seen this fight for the second round. Three-and-a-half years ago, the
House passed the America Invents Act, which fundamentally diminished
our patent system, weakening its protection for ordinary citizens.
{time} 2030
It still, even with that weakening, was better than what you had in
Europe and in Japan. The negative impacts of that legislation are just
now being felt. They are just now moving through the patent system and
being implemented by the Patent Office.
We are going to find out what happens when you undermine the little
guys in order to help the big guys because you don't--after a few more
years, where is the innovation coming from?
From the big, multinational corporate bureaucracies, from the
government bureaucracy? No. When we have undermined the small inventor,
the individual inventor, we have taken the profit motive out of this.
We have put roadblocks in the way of America moving forward.
The next wave began in this patent battle just a little more than a
year ago. Last year, as I said, the onslaught aimed at neutering the
rights of the small inventor was barely turned back, and that bill came
forward, and we got it through. Actually, it passed the House with a
substantial margin.
When citizens and universities and small businesses across America
understood because of the great debate that we had here what was at
stake, they inundated their Senators with calls and visits, and their
message was: Don't undermine our rights. Don't undermine the rights of
the small inventor. Don't undermine this constitutional right. It is
just as precious as the rights of speech and press and religion. Let's
not undermine that in the name of helping some multinational
corporation squash an opposition to a guy who has invented something
and wants to get his rightful payment for the work that he has done.
Of course, the power brokers don't claim that they must change the
measure of legal protection that we offer inventors because they don't
claim that it is because the inventors are bad and need to be deprived
of longstanding rights or that the Constitution is just outmoded and we
don't really want to follow it. They don't argue that.
No, these powerful interests, mega-multinational corporations, well
heeled here in Washington, these powerful interests have to have a
bogeyman to try to draw away attention from what they are really trying
to do.
The issue won't become diminishing the rights of the small inventor,
preventing the small inventor from enforcing his patents on people who
are trying to steal it, who are big mega-multinational corporations.
No, they don't say that. There is always an excuse, something that
has to sound very sinister, a sinister force at play, trying to hurt
these innocent businessmen--unfairly at that.
We heard it before. About 15 years ago, we heard it was submarine
patents. That was the real derogatory term, submarine patents. That was
why we need to change the amount of time that someone is able to
actually have, as a guarantee for their patent rights.
The submarine patent was used to say: Oh, so what if after 20 years
and you haven't had your patent for 15 years, so you have only got 5
years of protection, so what?
[[Page H910]]
It is the submarine patenters we are really trying to get at--forget
the hardship on those little guys, which is the vast majority of people
who want to get their patent as soon as possible--but the submarine
patenters, meaning we have got to really restrict those little guys.
Well, now, the big guys have come up with another sinister label.
That was a fraud. The submarine patent issue was a fraud, and we fixed
it very easily, with a very small compromise, without having to have
all the rights of the little guy eliminated, simply by saying if the
little guy is--it can be shown that he prevented the issuance of his
patent, trying to elongate that, well then that clock will start
ticking during that time period and that time will be taken away from
him.
If it is not him, if it is the bureaucracy that is holding off the
actual issuance of the patent, we shouldn't be doing things that hurt
the little guy who is trying to get his patent out.
Well, so we got that covered, but now, the big guys have come up with
another sinister label because submarine patent doesn't apply anymore.
We found a way to solve it without hurting the little guy.
Now, the big guys have come up with this other label which is aimed
at confusing the public about who gets hurt and who benefits from the
so-called reforms that are now being shoved through Congress. They are
insisting that the need for patent change, basic changes in our patent
system, is because of the so-called patent trolls. Over and over again,
you will hear this sinister word.
Now, let me tell you how cynical this is. There is a guy who was a
top executive at one of the electronic companies who is now on my side,
on our side, the side of the little guy on this issue, but he was very
high up in a big company. They got together with their people to decide
what tactic they should use to get the changes done and passed through
Congress.
They knew they couldn't just attack the small inventor. They knew
they couldn't attack the innovators in our society. What are they going
to do to diminish their patent rights?
Well, we have got to make it sound like it is somebody else who is
going to get hurt, and that person has to be evil. The patent troll is
what they came up with.
This gentleman who worked in the business said he was in a room when
that term was formalized by a number of people in the industry. They
went around in a circle and said: What is the worst and nastiest
sounding term we can come up with in order to vilify that, to draw
people's attention away from this issue?
He told me he had suggested patent pirate; and, no, patent troll
sound really much more sinister. That is how cynical these people are.
It is arrogant, and it is cynical because the patent troll is a
creation.
Yeah, there are some people who misuse our system. There are
frivolous lawsuits that happen in our country. You know what, it is not
just in the patent issue. It is all across the board. There are lawyers
that have frivolous lawsuits.
They are trying to claim that patent trolls are people with patents
that are not legal patents, and they are trying to threaten lawsuits so
they will get paid off. Well, that is happening throughout our system.
They are called frivolous lawsuits.
There is no need to hurt our small inventors and to phase back their
rights, as inventors, the rights of their ownership and the rights to
enforce their patent, in order to get someone a lawyer who is engaged
in a frivolous lawsuit.
These patent trolls are patent holders. Remember, when you hear the
patent troll, just think: someone who owns a patent. Unless it is the
inventor himself, they say the patent troll is anyone who owns a patent
who is not the inventor. Patent holders or companies who represent
patent holders are also people who own patents who get in infringement
cases, but these are people who did not invent it themselves, and,
thus, they are called trolls.
They are engaged in basically defending their rights against the
infringement of large companies. Yeah, there are a few cases where
small guys, we are told--that, again, is a front, to try to protect the
big guys from the little guys, but there has been infringement on the
patents that they own, these regular people, people who own--and
patents are what? It is your property, intellectual property.
Patents should be looked at that the United States Government
believes it is your right to own, for a given period of time, as I just
read in the Constitution, your invention or your writing, and you own
it.
If someone is infringing and if you want to buy it from someone,
someone who has invented it but can't afford to basically enforce it,
well, you have a right to do that. That doesn't make you an evil troll.
That means you have bought something that is a piece of property.
By the way, after a number of years--10, 13, 14 years--that will no
longer be your property because the patent protection lasts only a
given period of time. Well, these owners are just as valid as any other
patents that are granted by the Patent Office. We are not talking about
phony patents.
They will try to make it sound like it is, Oh, these worthless pieces
of paper. No, these are real patents and real pieces of paper that show
you have rights to own this particular technology.
Huge corporate infringers would have us believe that these patents
that they are talking about, that the people are trying to enforce,
that these big companies have used, knowing that there is probably
someone who owns that who has developed this new technology and just
forgetting about them and leaving them behind, well, these big
corporate infringers would have you believe that all these people are
that way. They are not.
Almost all of the infringement cases happen by people who
legitimately own a legitimate patent, and if not, it should be decided
in court. There is nothing wrong with bringing this to court if it is a
legitimate patent or if it is an illegitimate patent.
This happens all the time. Are you violating someone's property
rights when they own a piece of property and you have built a road
across them without asking whether or not you could use their property?
No, that should go to court.
In fact, it is not a frivolous lawsuit for someone who owns a piece
of property and someone who maybe owns a mine or something over here
and just builds a road across and doesn't ask you about it. No, you
have a right for compensation.
That is basically what we are talking about except, in this case, you
have an inventor who has enriched a big company with something new, but
the big company doesn't want to give him any of his royalties for
building this new technology.
By the way, in the past, big corporations would try to do patent
searches to make sure they weren't stepping on the little guy, and they
would try to cut deals with these patent owners to try to make sure
that they didn't face a lawsuit. They would be able to chart out
exactly what their expenses were.
Then they decided, Don't do it, don't even look, don't check to see
if we are stealing this new idea. You know why? They did that because
what you have now--and what they have tried to eliminate is that if a
big company intentionally knows that it is violating the patent rights
of someone who owns that new technology and infringes upon it, that it
knowingly does this, there are triple damages that the inventor can get
in his lawsuit against that big company.
The big companies, they say, Oh, well, so we won't even look, so they
can't prove that we knew we were stepping on these little people. They
don't even look anymore. That is how arrogant they are. Then they worry
when a small guy comes up and sues them for infringement?
By the way, why did they want to eliminate the triple damages?
Because the little guys, regular people, don't have the money to pay
for the lawyers necessary for these lawsuits. The little guy's ability
to hire a lawyer on a contingency basis--if you take away the triple
damages, you have eliminated the right of almost all of the small
inventors to be able to have the protection they need in court, but
that was one of their major goals.
By the way, we turned that one back, thank God, but it keeps going.
They
[[Page H911]]
keep going because this is a way to enrich these powerful,
multinational corporations in a way that the public isn't seeing it. It
is just a change in the rules; and the little guys, the wealth that
should be going to them is extracted and put into the pockets of these
big corporate entities.
They have the power, basically, and they are going to use it. They
have the power in the economy, and they have the power in getting their
case across to the Members of Congress because they have the ability to
hire lobbyists again and to give campaign contributions, but not to buy
votes, and I am not suggesting that.
When you are here and you have so much time, if you have lobbyists
that are working just to get the attention of the Member of Congress on
the issue for a short period of time, you have succeeded. These
companies can do it, and the little guy can't. The little guy has no
way of getting people's attention here.
The fact is that these big corporations--and especially Google--have
hired the best representatives in town and spent the most money getting
people's attention.
The only answer here is to make sure we offset that by making sure
the American people call their Member of Congress and tell them: Don't
diminish the patent protection for regular Americans, don't let this
happen.
They have won the last couple of fights. Again, like I say, by the
time it got over to the Senate, some people just started paying
attention, but we lost it here in the House.
Well, the patents that we are talking about are patents; they are not
frivolous lawsuits. These are patents that were issued by the United
States Patent Office, but huge infringers would have us believe: Of
course, don't worry, the Congress is just up there trying to protect
people who really haven't come up with anything and just have frivolous
lawsuits.
No, we are talking about tangible, tangible items that these people
have used without paying the royalty to the man or woman who invented
that particular item, that particular technology.
What makes these patents different than the good patents, by the way?
These same large corporations own thousands of patents--by the way,
most of these corporations are the megaelectronics industry companies,
so they own lots of patents.
What makes the little guy a patent troll for being willing to try to
get some help to fight these big guys? What makes that little guy's
patent or the ``troll's'' patent any less real and any less valuable
and official as these big companies?
{time} 2045
They have their patents, too. If the small inventor doesn't have the
resources to enforce his or her patent in the limited time--they only
have owned this now. Remember, once you own a patent, you own it for 17
years, and then it is done; everybody owns it.
In the limited time they are granted for ownership, if they don't
have the resources to basically enforce their rights, an individual or
company can buy their rights and can create--or they can create a
partnership with a small inventor, and they can see to it that way to
see that there isn't a theft of this little guy's property, and they
call it an infringement. There is nothing wrong with someone coming in
and saying: Well, listen. If you can't enforce this, we think it is a
good idea, you have 10 more years of patent protection. We will buy
that patent right, just like buying a parcel of land. We are going to
speculate that that land is going to go up in value or whatever. There
is no difference at all. It is a piece of property. It is a property
right. It is intellectual property.
This effort to change our patent law is an attack on the very nature
of intellectual property.
Okay. So the small inventor can't do it. What is wrong with somebody
coming in and offering to buy that patent right from him for those 10
years or to go into partnership with him?
Well, I have consulted with a number of outside individual inventors
and groups, and they have reaffirmed that the legislation now being
proposed disadvantages the little guy against deep-pocketed
multinational corporations. This has been achieved in the guise, as I
say, of targeting patent trolls.
You are not vilifying this poor little inventor, this guy who works
his heart out in his garage, quits his job because he has got an idea,
puts all of his money and sells his home in order to build something
new, a new technology. No, I am sorry. That guy is a hero. And under
the guise of getting patent trolls, whatever that is, they are going to
smash this little guy that I just described because they are going to
prevent anybody from helping him because that person who is helping him
is a patent troll. This person and company who has contracted with the
inventor to see that his or her rights are respected, I consider them
to be a positive economic and also a moral force within the concept of
determining ownership in our society.
How horrible, making a business--which some of these companies have
done--of helping a business out of helping small inventors see to it
that their patent rights are enforced. Oh, how horrible. Or how
horrible it is for them to be buying patent rights from them. Oh, my
goodness, a guy with money says: You can't afford to enforce your
rights; I think it is a great idea; I will pay you for this. The fact
that that happens and is able to happen in our society means that that
little guy now has something of value.
If we take that away and say: Oh, these people buying them are all
trolls--sounds sinister--oh, when you do that, the value of our patents
for all of our inventors goes down. We are undercutting the wealth that
is available to our independent inventors because we are devaluing what
they have if they can't enforce it themselves, they can't sell it to
somebody who is not going to commercialize it, thus you have got a
situation where the patent value, we are taking wealth out of the
pockets of the least able people in our society in the technology
arena, the least able to weather that, and we are putting that money
and that power into the pockets of the big mega-multinational, not just
American companies, multinational companies. It is sinful.
The proponents of this legislation are covering the fact that someone
has stolen someone else's patent rights, someone else's intellectual
property, and now they want to change the system so they can get away
with this theft. That is what it is all about. The big companies have
been stealing. They want to get away with it. They need to change the
rules of the game so they can get away with it, and the little guy will
just give up because he can't go through all the steps now.
They would have us believe that all the lawsuits against these
companies are frivolous. As I say, that is not the case. Well, the vast
majority of them are not. The vast majority of patent infringement
cases have very legitimate areas of concern, and they need to be
decided by the court, not to have Congress step in and make it more
difficult for someone to take someone to court who has stolen his
intellectual property. Yes, there are frivolous lawsuits throughout our
system. Why are these guys just focusing on patents? They are doing
that because that is what these megacorporations will benefit from.
Tonight I draw the attention of the American people to H.R. 9, the
Innovation Act, introduced by Chairman Goodlatte with 19 bipartisan
cosponsors. The last Congress, the House Committee on the Judiciary
held a hearing on this same bill. The same bill that came in last time,
this bill that is being proposed now, H.R. 9, is exactly the same bill,
except maybe with one provision that is taken out, which is a provision
that I was able to get out of the bill on the floor in the debate and
in the amendment process.
By the way, that provision was going to prevent inventors, if they
believed they were treated unfairly by the Patent Office, that
provision would deny them the right to take it to court. They would
have to settle the issue with an ombudsman from the Patent Office. Get
that? The right to use court of a U.S. citizen was going to be denied
them, and the proponents of this legislation just let it drip off their
back like water off a duck's back. Give me a break. That is a huge
violation of rights of Americans, but it is just as huge a violation
for us to try to diminish their ability to enforce the rights of their
own property.
So I draw attention to H.R. 9. Last Congress the House Committee on
the
[[Page H912]]
Judiciary held a hearing on this almost very same bill. The witnesses
at that hearing, including former Patent Office Director Kappos, made
it clear that we should move slowly and with great care in making any
changes to the patent law, especially in light of the fact that no one
yet understands the implication of a similar patent law that was passed
2 years ago, the America Invents Act.
The process from that act is just now being implemented. I think it
is going to have a very negative impact, and we need to know that that
is what is going to happen, and we need to work that into our calculus
of whether we should pass even more restrictions like are in that first
bill.
So everybody says: Take it easy; go slow; make sure you are right
before you go ahead. Well, we haven't even digested the last bite
Congress has taken out of the patent law. We haven't even digested that
at all, and now they want us to gobble down a few more apples. We need
to make sure that we know what we have already gotten ourselves into by
biting into this apple, but, no, we have got to now commit to having
even more and more change before we even know whether that apple is
going to turn sour in our stomach and cause us to be sick.
In and of itself, this legislation is too broad, H.R. 9, the same
thing they tried to pass through here last year, rammed it through, too
broad, its implications too unclear, its effects unknowable. That is
what witnesses and other experts have indicated. The conclusion, as I
say, is move forward with these fundamental changes in our patent
system, and if you do so, you might be undermining that system.
We need not to move forward quickly on this, see what the impact of
the past law changes are. That is what now has been indicated, but that
is not what has happened. That is not what we have seen happen here on
Capitol Hill. The House was railroaded into passing this new proposal
on top of the previous legislation before we have a chance to see
whether it is going to have a negative or positive effect, and it is
not even being fully implemented yet. But yet we were pushed. This
thing was rammed down our throats. It seems like some multinational
corporations really wanted action now: Do it now.
Well, what is going on here? This congressional ramrodding
exemplifies the battle to diminish America's patent system that has
been going on for 25 years. This isn't something new. What I am
describing to you is just one more hit, one more attempt by people to
harmonize American law with the rest of the world.
We need to be more like the rest of the world. We have a strong
protection of intellectual property rights. Oh, we should be more like
the rest of the world--baloney. The fact is America should stand tall.
If we want harmony with the rest of the world, they should harmonize
with our stronger protection for the individual, for our caring for
ordinary people.
This law and these changes are going to change the way we do business
in America, all right. We are not going to have the creative and the
cutting edge as these very same mega-multinational corporations go to
countries like China in order to get cheap labor to accomplish their
mission rather than using the technology of Americans, giving them the
royalty for it, at least, in order to make sure our country and our
countrymen are safe, our countrymen are secure and our well-being of
our people economically, they have good jobs producing competitive
products that they can sell overseas. No. No. These companies, they
just want that power for themselves. They want to harmonize with the
rest of the world so they can run roughshod over all of us.
According to the sponsors of H.R. 9, it is an attempt to combat the
problem of patent trolls. That is it. You look at their arguments, it
is all patent trolls, patent trolls, patent trolls, even though the
study mandated by Congress shows that this much-heralded problem is not
a major driver of lawsuits. It has not caused, as they claim, a surge
of new lawsuits. In fact, the most recent data shows that patent
lawsuits dropped dramatically in 2014 compared to previous years.
The provisions of this legislation are designed to make it much more
complicated. Now, this is what it is. This legislation, H.R. 9, is
designed to make it much more complicated, costly, and challenging to
bring a lawsuit for patent infringement, thus hurting the little guy,
the infringement that is taking place. That means the victim is the
little guy. We are helping the big guy, the guy who is committing the
crime.
By the way, if these people wanted to impact frivolous lawsuits, if
they say, ``Oh, there are too many frivolous lawsuits with patents,''
they should just make it simpler and cheaper to defend against baseless
infringement cases. Somebody that is accused of infringement and it is
baseless, let's make it easier for these companies to defend themselves
against that charge in court.
But, no, no, making it more easy to defend themselves, no, no, no. We
are being asked to raise the bar for the inventor to bring lawsuits to
defend his or her rights rather than lowering the bar to allow small
businesses and others to defend themselves against frivolous lawsuits.
When we weaken the little guy--that is what we are doing. They want us
to weaken the little guy to protect the big guy from frivolous
lawsuits.
Well, who gets hurt and who is helped? You have a sinister cover-up
there, the trolls, and who is getting helped by that? These big
megacorporations. And who is getting hurt? The little guys who can't go
through all these extra steps; they can't afford to protect themselves.
And we are going to side with the big guys, the big guys again who take
their work to China without blushing? This legislation, H.R. 9, is
consistent with the decades-long war being waged on America's and
against America's independent inventors.
Here are a few provisions of this Innovation Act we have just
submitted:
It would create new requirements for a patent holder, when a patent
holder must, once filing a claim for infringement, provide information
about all the parties who are involved with this; and, thus, you
basically have the accused infringer is going to know everybody who is
involved and, thus, be able to basically attack all of the people, not
just the guy who has lost his intellectual property rights, but
somebody who backed him up now will become a target of big
corporations. This means the elimination of privacy for major business
dealings.
The little guy no longer has that right of privacy. The little guy is
totally exposed, as his friends and suppliers will be. The patent
holder will be forced to provide a list of potential bank accounts to
raid, and those bank accounts and all of that information will be made
available to the bad guys, the people who are infringing. The big
companies who are beating him down will now have all this information
to use against him.
In addition, once the requirement has been invoked, the patent holder
must maintain a current record of the information on file at the Patent
Office or forfeit the rights.
{time} 2100
What that means is the patent holder now has huge new bureaucratic
reporting requirements, dramatically increasing his cost and
vulnerability.
Now, you do that to a small investor or a small inventor, what does
that say? You are increasing their costs dramatically. And why are we
increasing their requirements for bureaucratic reporting? Because they
have actually reported an infringement of their intellectual rights;
thus, they have got to pay the price; they have got to have the burden
on them. We are going to put the burden on them for saying, Somebody
just stole my property. We are increasing the burden on them.
If they do that, from then on, they have a whole new obligation, a
bureaucratic obligation.
In addition, the patent holder gains a new bureaucratic fee--not just
a bureaucratic requirement but a fee--and is forced to pay record
keeping fees to maintain the current record at the Patent Office.
More fees, more bureaucratic requirements. These are minor
inconveniences to multinational corporations, these corporations with
hundreds, if not thousands of employees. It is not going to cost them
anything. In fact, when they go to court, they have a whole stable of
attorneys, so it won't cost them much money there either.
So for these multinational corporations, this isn't even an
inconvenience.
[[Page H913]]
But for the little guy, all of these new requirements are killers
because they don't have $100,000 that they can just drop into keeping
better books over here or getting a hold of all of these people or
exposing anybody who has invested in their patent.
The Innovation Act also enables large multinational corporations to
create nested shell companies which have few assets but can infringe on
patents while the inventor is unable to sue their customers, who are
free to continue infringing. So they say: Well, we will just do all of
our business with this technology, through that company, so if we get
sued, they can't get at us--no way. While the first court case moves
through the system, we are going to shield these big guys who are
stealing.
This process could keep an infringing process in place for a decade
or more while the inventor is trying to find ways to stop that
infringement.
The Innovation Act authorizes the Patent Office director to create a
patent troll database--how about that--and to create a strategy to
teach small business how to defend themselves against patent trolls.
We are encouraging the director of the Patent Office to create an
enemies list and a strategy guide for people who are infringing on
other people's patent rights. That is what we are talking about.
They are trying to basically vilify a group of people who are
involved in a perfectly legal and moral economic activity, helping out
small business guys, buying small patent owners' rights to their
patents. If they can't enforce it themselves, they are going into
partnership with them.
No, no. Now we are going to have a list of these people who are going
to be on an enemy's list mandated by the Patent Office, according to
this legislation.
So we are encouraging this enemies list strategy. Instead of just,
okay, if there is a frivolous lawsuit, let's just make it easier for
someone to defend themselves in court.
The ultimate results of this legislation will be:
Increased patent infringement. Have you got that? This legislation,
H.R. 9, will increase the amount of theft in our society because now we
have made it easier.
Reduced legal remedies. We have basically reduced the legal remedies
for the victim, for those who have been infringed.
We have reduced the investment in small business. Why are people
going to invest in a new patent if they think it can be infringed upon,
and this guy isn't going to get his money back? So we have dramatically
hurt the amount of money that is going to be invested in the new
technology, in the brilliant ideas that come from our students from
university. You know, they come out and they have great ideas. We want
them to go into small business and follow their dream. Oh, no, no. This
would make it almost impossible for people like that. Our young people
and small businessmen, people with a dream.
Irreparable damage will be done to our research universities, to our
inventors and entrepreneurs. All of these people are going to be hurt.
Let me put it this way: our colleges and universities, they know that
if this bill passes--the one that was going through the Senate passed--
there would be a dramatic reduction in the value of all the patents
that they own, and that is a major, major asset to our universities.
Each part of this so-called reform is detrimental to the patent
owners, especially damaging to individual small inventors. Every
provision bolsters the patent thieves, the infringers, at the expense
of the legal owners.
No, no. Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about patent trolls,
how evil they are. ``Troll'' is a bad word. You don't want to be on the
side of the trolls.
No, no. Everything they are proposing in the name of stopping the
trolls, using that as cover, hurts the little guy and helps these big
guys who are financing this campaign to undermine our patent system.
This approach assists thieves because they are powerful corporations
versus little guys. The only hope for the little guy has always been
that America stands for the God-given rights and that those rights are
protected by our government, recognized and protected by it, as it was
in the Constitution.
To all people, rich and poor, their rights are protected in this
country, and we should not be about to let big corporate interests step
on the little guy.
If a guy owns a piece of property and a big corporation wants to
build a road across it, to build a whatever it is on the other side--an
oil derrick or whatever it is--they have to pay that man's price
because he owns that property. And in this case, we are talking only
about an ownership for 17 years, granted to somebody who has actually
come up with something that is of great value to our people.
No. We need to make sure that we remain the country where we protect
everybody's rights and that the big guys can't get away with stepping
on the little guys.
The rights of ownership are the same as all of our other rights:
speech, religion, assembly. And this has been what we are seeing now in
H.R. 9--the last couple of years have been a blatant power grab by the
big guys to diminish the rights of the little guy.
When the bill identical to this one was previously submitted,
opposition emerged to it, as people figured out what I am telling you.
What I am saying tonight--finally some people, when they heard the
debate over here, they mobilized. And when they found out what was
about to be foisted upon them, we were speaking with loud voices.
Here is a list of some of those people who opposed or expressed major
concerns over that act, a bill that was identical to H.R. 9, which is
now perched and ready to be shoved through Congress:
The Association of American Universities; American Council on
Education; Association of American Medical Colleges; Association of
Public and Land-grant Universities; Association of University
Technology Managers; Council on Governmental Relations; Eagle Forum;
Club for Growth; American Bar Association; Patent Office Professional
Association; Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and
Procedure; American Intellectual Property Law Association; Intellectual
Property Owners Association; National Association of Patent
Practitioners; National Venture Capital Association; the Biotechnology
Industry Organization; Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America, PhRMA; Innovation Alliance; Coalition for 21st Century Patent
Reform; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Let's just note, all of these groups were opposed or were very
concerned about that act because:
It creates more paperwork for everybody, increasing the cost for
anybody who wants to defend their rights.
It forces patent holders who file claims of infringement to maintain
new bureaucratic reporting requirements and to pay new recordkeeping
costs. It just complicates their lives and their expenses.
It eliminates the independent judicial review of patent applicants by
striking section 145 of title 35. This is very important in order to
keep the Patent Office honest. There should be an independent judicial
review. That is what they tried to foist off on us last time.
And it dramatically increases the financial risks for anybody filing
an infringement lawsuit.
We need to make sure that our country stays true to the American
people, to what will give us security for our people. We need to be on
the cutting edge of technology. We need to be ahead of our potential
enemies. We can't defend our country man for man. We have got to have
the best equipment and the high technology that comes from the creative
thinking of our people. We need to make sure that our working people
are producing more wealth with every hour of work they do; thus, we can
afford to provide the services and the standard of living for ordinary
people.
Every time there is a new idea, if we actually permit that to be
stolen by multinational corporations, that is not going to improve the
well-being of our people.
We have seen this going on in the past. This is not the first time.
This is just in the last 25 years of onslaught. And what we have now in
H.R. 9 is just the latest salvo in the effort to destroy the patent
system that we have got.
[[Page H914]]
But this happened a long time ago. We have had to reaffirm the rights
of the little guy over and again.
There is a statue in our Congress, in our Capitol, of Philo
Farnsworth. Do you know who Philo Farnsworth was? Philo Farnsworth was
the inventor of the picture tube for the television.
Philo was a farmer and an engineer in Utah, a man with not many
resources at all. But he figured out something that RCA, one of the
biggest corporations in the country at the time, was trying to find
out: How do you create a picture tube?
Well, he wrote them and said, I found the secret. And what do you
know, they sent their top engineer over. Philo actually showed them
what he had done. And they said, We are going to get back to you, and
we are going to work with you as your partner. You know what they did?
He could never get a hold of them again.
David Sarnoff, one of the richest, most powerful men in the United
States, set out to steal the right to the patent for the picture tube
from this lone American, this guy who had a small farm in Utah. And he
led--Philo Farnsworth didn't give up. He led a struggle for 20 years to
get his rights to own that technology, that intellectual property.
And when he was fighting this huge corporate interest that was trying
to just squish him like a bug, he stood up there, and he couldn't have
stood alone. People invested in his lawsuit. People invested with him
so that justice would come and that inventors in the United States
would know that when they invent something, they have a right, and the
American people will stick by them.
In the end, the Supreme Court made the decision, and they decided
with the little guy. They decided with Philo. What a great affirmation
of our country. And there is a statute today of Farnsworth in the
Capitol, the man who advanced communications in our country. You will
never find a statue to David Sarnoff or any of these big moguls who
tried to squish him, these multinational corporations.
Let's remember the heart of America, patriotism. Let's be loyal to
our regular people. They will be loyal to us. That is what the American
Revolution was all about.
I ask my colleagues to join me in opposing H.R. 9. And I invite
people to talk about it and to talk to their Congressmen and their
Senators and to make sure that they don't come in here for a vote not
knowing how important this vote is on H.R. 9.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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