[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 75 (Friday, May 15, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H3238-H3243]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    AMERICAN PATENT SYSTEM IN DANGER

  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 yield to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Conaway), my very good friend.


                       Repeal the Oil Export Ban

  Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for 
yielding.
  This may not be the topic that he is going to talk about here, but I 
appreciate the time to be able to talk to something that is important 
to the folks of west Texas and is actually important to all Americans. 
I rise today to bring attention to an important issue that is gathering 
nationwide support, that is, repealing the export ban on crude oil.
  This week, I submitted an amendment to the National Defense 
Authorization Act that would, in fact, repeal the ban. While the 
amendment did not ultimately make it into the final bill, I would like 
to take a moment to talk about the importance of lifting that ban.
  First, let's remember why the export ban was placed into law to begin 
with. Because of the OPEC oil embargo of 1973, Congress enacted the 
Energy Policy and Conservation Act, directing the President to ban 
crude oil exports. At the time, the ban served a purpose: to keep our 
oil at home in order to reduce our exposure to the wildly fluctuating 
markets of that time.
  Today, though, the ban has outlived its purpose. It is an antiquated 
policy that is now only serving to harm Americans and punish domestic 
production. For example, right now we allow Iran to export more oil 
from their country than we do from our own domestic producers. This is 
wrongheaded and is long overdue for a change. The ban should be lifted, 
while leaving in place the necessary authorities to allow the President 
to act in an emergency and while preserving our Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve.
  Some claim that gasoline prices would increase if the ban is lifted, 
but analysis shows that to be incorrect. It shows that prices will 
actually fall, reducing the cost of the product that American families 
rely on every single day, which is another reason to support lifting 
the ban.
  In 2013, the United States was the number one oil producing nation in 
the world, surpassing Saudi Arabia and Russia, a fact that many thought 
impossible only a decade ago.
  Taking advantage of our Nation's abundant resources by lifting the 
ban will, in fact, lower gasoline prices, create dependable, long-
lasting jobs, and help expand our energy supply, making our Nation more 
energy independent.
  I urge my colleagues to listen to the growing voice of the American 
people. It is time to lift the export ban on crude oil.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to warn my colleagues and

[[Page H3239]]

the American people of several threats to their safety and their 
prosperity. These threats are observable from Washington, D.C., but may 
not be observable to the American people. So I ask my colleagues to pay 
attention, number one, to what we are doing here, but I also would ask 
the American people to pay attention to what we are doing here.
  There are changes being maneuvered through our legislative branch and 
being mandated by executive orders from President Obama that will 
undermine the economic well-being of hard-working Americans and put us 
in jeopardy as a nation, both economically and in terms of our national 
security.
  Those pursuing these egregious policy initiatives are fulfilling 
President Obama's pledge to change America. And what most Americans 
believed was a commitment to make our country better, to change 
America, was, in reality, an elitist and, I believe, an arrogant pledge 
to dramatically alter the basic and fundamental institutions and values 
that have been thought of by our patriots to be the essential elements 
defining our country and, of course, ensuring our freedom, security, 
and prosperity.

  What are these threats that I talk about? What are these threats that 
we need to pay attention to?
  They are not coming from one political party. They are not coming 
from the Republicans or the Democrats, as a party. You can see support 
across the board on both sides of the aisle on various sides of these 
issues. It is also not a threat just stemming from one person or one 
political leader, but it is, of course, what we are talking about.
  This threat is coming from a very powerful coalition seeking profit 
for themselves, even if it impoverishes the people or diminishes, at 
least, the economic well-being of the people of the United States.
  Ironically, people who are enjoying their freedom and people who are 
enjoying their relative prosperity don't pay attention to some of the 
very intricate matters that have come before us in Congress. But I can 
assure all of my fellow Americans, there are powerful interests who are 
paying attention, and they are doing what they best can do to 
manipulate the law in a way that will enhance their profits, even if it 
is being done at the expense of the well-being of the American people.
  We can see this in dramatic changes that are being suggested in 
something that probably is very boring and tame to most Americans when 
they even hear that someone is going to even talk about patent law--
patent law, which is the legal structure that enforces an inventor's 
right to own and control the product of his or her genius, labor, and 
investment for a given period of time.
  So I say, of course, that sounds pretty mundane, patent law. Is it 
some detailed, intricate regulation and control of this area of 
economic life, of jobs, and things that we do in America?
  Well, it is more than that. It may sound mundane; but, in reality, 
patent law and the patent rights of our people--the right of our people 
to own the technology they have created for a specific period of time--
has been a significant determinant in our country's way of life, our 
country's quality of life, and the security of our Nation.
  This intellectual property right, the right through a patent 
ownership of 17 years' control and--not only of 17 years of control, 
but also of profit from one's own inventions, has been vital to our 
well-being as a nation and an essential part of the American Dream.
  Let's note that this was a right that was written into the 
Constitution by our Founding Fathers. People know about the Bill of 
Rights. But the word ``right'' was only used in the body of the 
Constitution once, and that was a section that guaranteed that 
Americans--that what Congress should do is to make sure that Americans 
were guaranteed the right to control their own creations, if they are 
inventors or writers, for a given period of time, to profit from it so 
that they would have incentives to come up and be the most creative 
people in the world.

                              {time}  1130

  Our Founding Fathers believed that technology and freedom would 
uplift ordinary Americans and give all Americans a chance at a decent 
life. And they were right. They wrote that into the Constitution. It is 
right there. I believe it probably was under the influence of my 
favorite Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin. What we have to recognize 
is that over the years of our country, what has made us a great nation 
is our freedom and technology.
  This is especially true for minority Americans and especially of 
Black Americans. Let me note that Black Americans, if you take a look 
at the history of our patent system, are disproportionately inventive. 
In the history of this country, actually, as a proportion of their 
population, our Black Americans have been more inventive than any other 
group in our country. Why is that? Because patent law and property law 
were considered a constitutional right, and this was in the one area in 
which Black Americans were not discriminated against once they were 
freed in 1860 to 1865, when our Black citizens were freed. After that 
we found that more patents proportionately went to that community 
because they needed an opportunity to uplift themselves free from 
outside forces beating down on them and denying their rights.
  Mr. Speaker, our patent system and the patents granted by Washington 
thus respected the rights of all of our citizens, including our 
minority citizens. Thus, making sure that we have patent protection has 
been one of the great boons to our minority populations, who otherwise 
suffered great discrimination and suffered from a lack of rights, 
except for the property rights that come from inventions.
  We see this has been good not just for minority Americans however. 
Let me note that we have, with technology, enhanced the ability of our 
people to work hard and get the job done and thus create wealth that 
was then owned by a large number of people rather than an elite. Of 
course, when people understand the importance of technology--and 
business has more and more come to the understanding that it is new 
technology that will give them leverage and control over wealth.
  There has been an ongoing attempt in these last 20 years to 
dramatically diminish the patent protection enjoyed by Americans, the 
patent protection written right into our Constitution. The fact is 
that, for the last 20 years, I have been personally engaged along with 
a small group of people who believe that technology and freedom are 
essential to the well-being of our country. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and 
others have beat back many of these attempts to diminish the patent 
protection of our citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, America does have a patent system now. It is the 
strongest in the world. It is the strongest patent system in the world. 
We have always been proud of that. We have been proud that it has 
resulted in the fact that ordinary people have high standards of living 
here and they earn a good living from work because their work is 
enhanced by technological superiority over their competitors.
  By the way, Mr. Speaker, people work hard all over the world. 
Everybody works hard. In all of these countries they work hard like our 
people work hard, but they don't have the technology that enhances 
their work and amplifies their energy and hard work so that more wealth 
is created. We have encouraged that since the day our Constitution was 
ratified. That is why our people, when they work hard, end up living 
better because it gives us a competitive edge over the slave and 
oppressed labor in other countries.
  We, in fact, of course, know that the prosperity of average Americans 
to us and to our Founding Fathers was an important goal. It wasn't just 
we were going to have a country that worked, but it was going to be a 
system with respect for rights that would lead to a good and decent 
living for all of us, for all the people, and not just a small elite of 
businessmen.
  Well, we have done this over the years, and it has worked well. We 
have not had to have our own people who do work hard having to compete 
in terms of muscular and use of their physiques in order to produce 
goods, services, and wealth. They had the technology that permitted 
them to outcompete those other countries.
  Also, Mr. Speaker, it ensures we have a more secure country. Having a 
strong patent system where people are encouraged to invent new things 
and to be innovative has given us the edge over people who would do 
harm to our country. It has been important to our national security 
because we can't take

[[Page H3240]]

on adversaries that don't respect human rights. If America was trying 
to secure itself from threats from groups of people around the world, 
leaders and gangsters who have no respect for human rights whatsoever, 
we lose because they are willing to lose all of their people, and they 
are willing for any amount of bloodshed to maintain control and power 
and, yes, to beat the United States and democratic countries.
  Instead, Mr. Speaker, we have had technology at work helping defend 
our country, technology that would not have existed had we not had the 
patent protection that has been traditional to our country. Even look 
today what is happening. Without drones, where would we be? Without 
drones fighting the good fight against ISIL, we would have to have 
thousands of Americans there to fight that threat to mankind and the 
freedom of the world. Instead, we have joined with the forces in Erbil, 
which is the Kurds, in standing tough directly against this onslaught 
of radical Islam, and they are holding firm. But without our drones 
there to help them, they would be overrun.
  So this idea of property ownership of technology, of your 
technological developments, has been heart and soul to a prosperous and 
secure America. So when I say there are changes being proposed here in 
Congress, they are trying to manipulate through the system that will 
affect the prosperity of the average American and the security of our 
Nation. The public and my fellow colleagues need to pay attention 
because we are again facing a major onslaught, an attack on this 
fundamental right of technology ownership by those who create that 
technology.
  We are facing an onslaught that is being what? Being masterminded, 
being masterminded and being pushed by megamultinational corporations 
who are not operating in the interests of the people of the United 
States. They could care less about all of that. But they are operating 
after what they can do to enrich themselves, even if it is not in the 
interests of the people of the United States and the interests of our 
security. These megamultinational corporations have pumped millions 
upon millions of dollars into lobbying for changes in our patent system 
that diminish the rights of the inventor and enables these 
multinational corporations to steal the intellectual property of our 
inventors and use it without giving compensation to the owners. This is 
in direct contradiction to what the Constitution meant to guarantee and 
why it was written directly into the body of the Constitution that this 
was a right that Americans should be concerned about.
  Mr. Speaker, for the last 20 years there has been a stealth attack on 
America's strong and effective patent system. Let us note that we have 
had the strongest and the most effective and recognized fair patent 
system in the world. All other patent systems have been judged against 
us, and now we have had these last 20 years an insidious undermining, 
and we are on the edge of a huge attack and perhaps successful 
destruction of fundamental patent rights that have been part of our 
people for many years.
  For example, 20 years ago, shortly after I came here, I found that in 
the GATT--that is a trade treaty that we have--there were provisions 
that were snuck into the GATT implementation legislation. That is 
legislation we passed here in Congress in order to implement a trade 
agreement. These big corporate interests had put into the GATT 
implementation legislation without telling anybody two provisions that 
would have dramatically hurt the small inventors in this country.
  Up until now, the Constitution actually says that the inventors and 
the writers are guaranteed a specific time where they will control. 
They will be granted a specific time where they will control their 
patent, the rights to their patent, and the rights of their creative 
genius. Well, it has traditionally been that once you file, as soon as 
the patent is actually granted to the inventor, then the clock starts 
ticking, and you get 17 years of protection. In different parts of the 
world, that is not what the law has been. In Japan and in Europe, it 
has been, oh, no, once you apply, after 20 years, even if it takes you 
10 or 15 years to get your patent or 19 years, no, the clock is ticking 
then. You may not be granted your patent for 19 years, and then you 
have 1 year left, and that is no patent protection at all.
  So now they are trying to foist that on us. By the way, that would 
give people, knowing the clock is ticking--those small inventors in 
other countries are faced by people who are trying to pressure them to 
accept lesser claims to the legitimacy of their patent in order to 
basically prevent these guys, men and women, from being compensated the 
way they would be if they had a guaranteed term, which is part of our 
Constitution.
  Mr. Speaker, the other provision that was there 20 years ago was the 
18-month publication demand. That is, after 18 months, when someone 
applies for a patent--now, it is that once someone applies for a 
patent, that patent application is absolutely secret until that patent 
is granted. Unless you have a patent in your hand--then it is published 
for the world because their ownership has been established. Well, that 
has been traditionally what our Patent Office and our patent protection 
has been. Basically, you have a secret and you developed it, you give 
it to the Patent Office. In fact, if anybody leaked that information, 
up until this point it has been a felony for anybody to tell anyone 
else until that patent is actually granted to the inventor.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, they want to change this and say, if you haven't 
been granted your patent within 18 months, it will be published for the 
whole world. Think about that. Think about what I am saying. Before, 
for our entire country's history, we have made sure that an application 
is secret so that nobody can get ahead of the inventor himself and the 
inventor won't be put in a bad spot. We made sure that until the patent 
is granted it is secret. They want to change that so that after 18 
months it is published. What if that patent takes 10 years to issue? 
That means the man or woman who invented this piece of technology, our 
competitors overseas will be able to use it for all of that time 
because they will know all about it, but the patent hasn't been granted 
to the inventor yet.

                              {time}  1145

  I called that the ``Steal American Technologies Act.'' That is what 
they were trying to do. That is what it would result in, and keep that 
in mind.
  The large multinationals sought to weaken the ability of our 
inventors to enforce patent rights. Why? Why do they want these big 
companies here in the United States? Well, mostly, they are 
multinational companies now--they are big guys--and what they want to 
do is steal from the little guy--surprise, surprise.
  The big guys would try to manipulate the creation of law here that 
will enable them to take something from some person who has less 
economic power than themselves. Our constitutional rights are supposed 
to protect the little guy's rights. We believe the newspaper should be 
able to be published, but little guys should be able to print a 
mimeographed piece of information themselves and distribute it or to 
gather.
  Actually, what is hard for me to imagine is that, if these big guys 
were actually trying to diminish the rights of religion or speech in 
this country, or assembly, there would be an outcry; but, because it is 
the rights to own technology that you have created for a given period 
of time--it sounds too confusing, and they have let this feeling that 
maybe the people can't understand it, so they don't pay attention--they 
have let that lack of attention give them an opening to destroy and 
undermine the rights of Americans, and I think this right is every bit 
as important as those other rights of religion and speech, et cetera.
  What they have set up in these last 20 years, it is an ongoing David 
versus Goliath because some of the biggest corporations in the world 
are behind the effort to change the patent law.
  Well, we beat them back. As I say, there was a coalition of us--
Democrat and Republican, Marcy Kaptur. We had some very good support 
from the Black Caucus. I might add that, again, they recognized how 
important inventions have been to the Black community; but we beat them 
back.
  It was a bipartisan coalition. We have had to, over the years, 
compromise and negotiate certain things, but they have not gotten their 
way; but every time they have tried--they

[[Page H3241]]

have tried to overwhelm those of us who are preventing the diminishing 
of patent rights--they have had to use scare tactics, always claiming 
that there is a boogeyman, there is a boogeyman out there, and that is 
the reason why we have to attack the inventor, because there is 
something out there that is really threatening and it is sinister and 
it is a sinister force that has to be defeated, that is why we have to 
take away all of the rights of the inventors over here, because they 
have now tried to tell the story in a way.
  It is the equivalent of saying we are going to take away the rights 
of every American to sue someone--or a company or anyone else who has 
caused them damage--because there are frivolous lawsuits. Yes, there 
are frivolous lawsuits. There are some people who misuse our legal 
system.
  The last thing we want to do is eliminate the rights of all Americans 
to use the court system to protect their rights. That is basically what 
is going on here. Our own cherished patent rights to own what you have 
created--and this constitutional right that was given to Americans--is 
on the verge of being dramatically altered and diminished and 
destroyed.
  By the way, the first boogeyman that was used in order to try to gain 
support for these very same two items that they snuck in the GATT, the 
boogeyman was called the submarine patentors.
  Submarine patents--that is all you heard about before--as if a person 
who was filing for a patent was a submarine patentor. Everybody has got 
to lose their patent rights in order to get the submarine patentor.
  What was the submarine patentor? A submarine patentor was--their 
definition--someone who files for a patent and then does everything 
they can to delay the patent from being issued; and then, after years 
and years, the patent is finally granted, and they have got all this 
leverage on all the people who have used the technology in the 
meantime.
  Well, I am sorry; there were very few submarine patentors--there were 
some--but the fact is most inventors were struggling to get their 
patents issued to them as soon as possible because they needed the 
money, especially the little guys needed the money, and they were 
struggling, ``Please, give us the patent so we can move forward on 
this,'' but, no, they were being presented as if they were trying to 
slow down the process.
  Well, we finally, after really fighting for 10 years on this, reached 
the compromise, which my chief of staff, Rick Dykema, and myself 
negotiated, along with Marcy Kaptur, who negotiated this agreement with 
us, that if, indeed, there is a patent applicant who uses his abilities 
or uses various powers that he has in the bureaucratic process to delay 
the issue of the patent, well, if that happens, then, indeed, that 
patent, the time, the clock, has to start ticking against that guy, so 
he is using his own time when it has not been issued.
  Well, that solved the problem--there it was--without diminishing the 
rights of those people who were struggling to get their patents out, 
but took 10 years or 15 years to get the patent issued.
  That wasn't a hard thing to negotiate, a hard thing to do, but it was 
a hard thing to accomplish because the people who were pushing 
submarine patents were really trying to diminish the patent rights of 
all Americans so that they could steal from little guys and could take 
away their patent rights basically as soon as possible.
  Well, now, the current boogeyman is the patent troll. Now, there are 
some people who misuse and have frivolous lawsuits who use the patent 
system. There is no doubt about it. I might add this idea that people 
will be sent a thing--you are violating my patent, you either give my 
$5,000, or I am going to sue you, and then small businesses go along 
with it--there have been court cases now that have taken care of that.
  Obviously, that is a swindle and something we can't put up with; that 
was happening to a degree, but there is no excuse, as I say, to 
eliminate the rights of all Americans because somebody abuses a right. 
That is not what is acceptable.

  The patent troll is being used as a straw man. We are going to have 
legislation that will get this guy who has these frivolous lawsuits and 
is creating such havoc among small-business men and ripping them off. 
Just like the submarine patents, that can be taken care of without 
eliminating the patent rights of our people.
  What we have now is the straw man, the patent troll. When you hear a 
debate on this issue, all you will hear is patent troll, patent troll, 
patent troll, not recognizing that every provision in this bill 
diminishes--it is H.R. 9 that is before our Judiciary Committee now--
every provision makes it more difficult for the small inventor to 
enforce his patent against infringement by future megacorporations.
  Guess who is pushing this legislation? Huge megacorporations who want 
that little guy not to be able to sue a corporation that has stolen his 
intellectual property rights--this is basically--but they are going to 
say: Oh, no, it is the troll we are after, the troll.
  Well, as I say, there have been frivolous lawsuits, and there have 
been changes made in the judicial system itself of how to handle that, 
but there is no excuse for a troll--for this word ``troll,'' a straw 
man--get him to be used to damage and destroy the rights of the 95 
percent of the technology creators in our country, take away their 
rights to get this straw man.
  Well, let me tell you how the word ``troll'' came about, the word 
``patent troll.'' That is the reason you are hearing it. Every time you 
hear somebody say it, remember this. A group of corporate elitists got 
in a circle in a room--I know because one of the people who was in that 
meeting switched sides and came over and disclosed that these corporate 
executives said: What can we do to make it sound so sinister that we 
can get this passed? What words can we come up with that will just 
basically create such a bad feeling that the American people will not 
recognize that what we are really doing is trying to get the small 
inventor and make sure that the small inventor cannot sue us for things 
that we are using?
  Okay. They went around the room. This friend, the fellow who told me 
about this meeting, said: I came up with the words ``patent pirate,'' 
and then, by the time it got around the circle, somebody came up with 
the words ``patent troll.''
  They said: That is it. That sounds so horrible, we can distract 
everybody's attention using that, and that is good enough. That sounds 
so evil that we can make sure that we go into battle using that in 
front of us, instead of we want to diminish the patent rights of 
honest, hard-working inventors who deserve to have a profit from their 
creation of their technology.
  That is just how cynical this debate has been. Every provision of 
H.R. 9--a bill now sitting in the Judiciary Committee--prevents--makes 
it more difficult for an inventor to actually enforce his rights and 
sue a company that is trying to steal, use his property rights, 
intellectual property rights, without compensating him.
  Let me give you an example of something in the bill and the changes 
they are proposing. Now, they are changing to loser pays legal fees. If 
you have a small inventor and if he sues that company and it is a huge 
company, that is usually what he has created and making profit from it, 
if he sues them and he loses, he will have to pay the legal fees for 
that huge company.
  Now, for the huge company, that is almost nothing. Taking on a case 
of one guy is nothing in their expense account because they have got 
100 lawyers in a stable, waiting to help and being paid for. Well, if 
the inventor loses, that is it for him. That alone is wrong.
  In this legislation, H.R. 9, they have added another little proviso 
to destroy the small inventor; and that is, if someone invests in his 
invention, if someone invests in the invention and he manages to be 
successful and comes up with a new piece of technology and he is 
granted the patent and some megacorporation comes along and 
incorporates it and uses it and refuses to give this guy even a small 
payment for using the technology that he created, his intellectual 
property rights, if someone has invested in that inventor to help him 
make the invention, let's say that, when that inventor goes up to 
battle Goliath in his megacorporation, and let's say, even though he is 
right, he loses--because that happens sometimes in our country many 
times, where some people with a great number

[[Page H3242]]

of very sophisticated lawyers against the little guy, the little guy 
sometimes loses--well, what is going to happen now, according to this 
bill, is anyone who has invested in the inventor is going to have to be 
liable for the legal fees that come out of that suit.
  Who is ever going to give an investment to an inventor if that may 
open them up to liability? It is a liability, I might add, to some 
megacorporation, megamultinational corporation.
  Well, this provision just demonstrates what is the purpose of that 
provision. The provision is to beat down the little guy so that the big 
guys can steal, and that is evident, very evident; yet this bill is 
still moving forward.
  It is H.R. 9. It is in the Judiciary Committee now. As I say, H.R. 9 
is the equivalent of saying: Because there are frivolous lawsuits, we 
are going to do everything we can to diminish the power of ordinary 
citizens to use the law and legal lawsuits for compensation for damages 
done to them.

                              {time}  1200

  Every provision of the bill weakens the right of the inventor to 
enforce his or her own patents.
  This bill actually passed the House last year. We struggled against 
it here in the House, but what happens is 90 percent of the people here 
in this body are just so busy that it is hard to pay attention to 
something that seems mundane like a patent law, and they just can't get 
themselves to focus on it. The American people also think that issues 
like this are so complicated that they can't get involved, but that 
leaves the whole playing field open to huge corporations that are out 
to enrich themselves by basically structuring law in a way that the 
power and the wealth will flow to them.
  Supposedly, the system our Founding Fathers wanted was for the wealth 
to flow broadly across our country so that every American could benefit 
from new technologies and new wealth that was being created. Now they 
want to corral that wealth; they want to diminish our rights in order 
to enrich themselves. These companies are not companies that are loyal 
to the United States. They are being loyal to their own profits, and 
some of them are multinational corporations that have actually no ties, 
real ties, to the United States.
  Let me just suggest that this bill did pass the House last year, but 
it was stopped in the Senate because, by then, we had made so much 
noise here. As I say, a bipartisan group, led by myself, Marcy Kaptur 
from Ohio, Mr. Massie from Kentucky, and other very strong activists, 
got together, and we made so much noise that the American universities 
finally paid attention because that bill that lets people steal patent 
rights was a huge threat to our university system. Had it been signed 
into law, the value of patents would have gone down dramatically. Let 
me go back to how that works.
  Remember, we were talking about a troll. What their definition of 
``troll'' is is anybody who buys the patent rights from someone who has 
invented something and has a patent but who doesn't have the money to 
enforce it. Anybody who actually buys the patent rights but is not 
aiming at commercializing it himself and is going to enforce that and 
make a profit from it, that is going to be what they are stamping out. 
The universities are not there to commercialize what they are doing. 
They are there to basically have new discoveries, and they realize they 
have got a lot of patents that they own as part of their portfolios and 
that the actual values of those patent collections by the universities 
would have dramatically gone down. As well, of course, the patent value 
of any American would have gone down at that point.
  Also, other industries that are really important industries to our 
well-being--PhRMA and others, biotech industries--which struggle hard 
to come up with one patent that they then can sell in the market, are 
totally undermined by this effort to weaken our patent system. We 
managed to mobilize those people, and we stopped it the last time 
around; but the multinational corporations behind this legislation are 
so arrogant that this bill is now going to be shoved through again. 
This time, I think, with the American people, we can actually stop it 
here in the House, and we can certainly stop it in the Senate.
  We need the American people to mobilize and to call their Congressmen 
and ask: How do you stand on this terrible patent bill, H.R. 9? We need 
people who are going to stand up for the little guy in America, not for 
some megacorporation that is trying to permit the theft of American 
intellectual property rights by multinational corporations.
  Whether or not we succeed this time around is going to depend on, 
yes, the people here who understand the issue, fighting it out, being 
as aggressive as we can be, and the American people mobilizing to make 
sure we protect our sacred rights granted in the Constitution. One of 
the most important, I believe to be, is the right of technology 
ownership to people who create that technology.
  As I say, there are powerful interest groups in this city and in our 
country and in the world that try to change policy and are manipulating 
government. That is clear. That is fine. We have a democratic process. 
We just need to make sure that we are all being held accountable--that 
all of the Members of the House and the Senate are accountable for 
their votes--and that we know and the public at least has the chance to 
know what we are voting on.
  Actually, there is something happening right now where that is not 
true at all, and I sure hope the American people are paying attention 
to what is going on here in Washington concerning what they call TPP, 
the trade promotion pact, and then there is the TPA, which gives trade 
promotion authority to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is a trade 
treaty with the nations around the Pacific. The sinister nature of this 
can be seen because this trade treaty with the Pacific nations is 
secret. It has been declared classified.
  Right now, if I had gone down and read what now exists of this trade 
treaty and if I had announced it here on the floor, I would have been 
violating secrecy restrictions that they have declared--how about 
this?--in a policy about trade with major countries of the world, which 
will have an enormous impact on our well-being. It is being kept 
totally secret from the American people. How is that? Then they say 
Members of Congress can go down and look at it if they want to. Of 
course, as they have said, you can only do it within a certain time. 
They have regulated the time we can go down, and we are so busy that 
almost no Members of Congress will have gone down and read the actual 
documents that explain what that trade policy is that they are trying 
to foist on us.
  Please, I hope the American people understand that Members of 
Congress should not be voting on things that, number one, they don't 
have access to, but we should not be voting on something if we have not 
permitted the American people to know what that is. You will remember 
the famous statement by Ms. Pelosi about ObamaCare, which was that we 
have to pass it in order to find out what is in it. That is totally 
unacceptable. In trade treaties, these things will now pass rules and 
regulations based on this treaty that will impact our way of life here.

  Now, we have been briefed on it. I am on the Foreign Affairs 
Committee, and we were briefed on this the other day. The two main 
administration guys there--the people who had been Ambassadors and who 
are currently with the State Department--were briefing us. It is just 
like the boogey words over here, the scare words, in terms of patents. 
Now, this is all being used in just the opposite way with every 
glorious word--higher income for our people, more competitive for 
America, and all of the trade will come in our direction. Yet, when I 
asked these briefers, ``Hey, have you read this treaty?'' neither one 
of them had read it. So the people advocating for this treaty have not 
even read the treaty themselves.
  I found a provision in the treaty, or at least I understand it is in 
there--I have not verified it yet because we have all of this trouble 
to go through to verify what we are being asked to support--that says 
that patents in the United States will basically have to be published 
after 18 months. If a patent application is made and if after 18 months 
the patent is not granted, the patent will be published for the whole 
world to see. Uh-huh. Does that sound familiar? They tried to put that 
over on us 20 years ago. We managed to

[[Page H3243]]

thwart it then, and now they want to sneak it into a treaty, and the 
American people are not permitted to know what is in the treaty.
  Will that hurt us in some way? It will only make all of our 
technological discoveries available for our competitors overseas to be 
using long before the patent is even granted to the American inventor. 
You see what type of sinister forces we are up against. Who can sit 
down here and say how wonderful this treaty is going to be when the 
American people aren't allowed to see it and when almost all of us have 
not read it and when our briefers who come here have not even read it?
  I asked them yesterday, these briefers, ``Well, is this in the 
treaty?'' They didn't know. They didn't know whether or not this 
provision on patents was in there, which would undermine our rights to 
control our own creations here and have our opponents and our 
competitors overseas have all of the information about our technology 
even before the patent is granted. They didn't even know that was in 
there. They didn't know if it was or if it wasn't.
  By the way, if I had gone down and had finally gotten through the 
maze and had read the actual wording in the treaty, I would have been 
required not to have mentioned it today on the House floor as we are 
being restricted because it has been declared secret from the American 
people. This is outrageous.
  We don't need to have a trade promotion authority that will keep 
things from the American people, and we don't need to have a trade 
treaty with the Pacific and with all of these nations in Asia that will 
open us up to having our technology stolen, but also we don't know the 
other parts of it either.
  We keep hearing of the great things that are in it that are going to 
benefit the American workers, but we know what has happened in China. 
As for China, we were told, if we opened up our trade with China, China 
would modernize, and they would become a liberal, democratic country 
over the years. I call it the ``hug a Nazi, make a liberal'' theory. 
Basically, we were told that China would become a benevolent force. As 
we know now, China is becoming a malevolent force. China is becoming a 
threat to world peace, and the American people have not benefited from 
China trade as our good-paying jobs have gone to China.
  We don't want that for the rest of the world. We need to know what is 
in these trade treaties because they might have a major impact on 
bringing our working people's salaries down even more. Whether it is 
immigration or trade or patent law, our criteria should be what is in 
the interests of the people of the United States or whether it is in 
trade, where we have been basically having trade for the benefit of 
some mega-multinational corporations or patent law for the same clique.
  Guess what they also want? They want cheap labor, and that is why you 
see today this push to give 11 million people amnesty who have come 
here illegally. It is not 11 million. That is a 10-year-old figure. By 
the time they get done, they are going to bring 50 million people into 
our country who wouldn't be here otherwise. What is that going to do to 
our wage base? What is that going to do to Americans who are out 
looking for work right now? What is that going to do to our schools? to 
the money we have for our veterans' benefits? What is that going to do? 
We are undermining the well-being of the American people for the 
profits of some mega-multinational corporations. That is wrong.
  I am a Republican--I believe in free enterprise; I believe in private 
property; I believe in the profit motive--but we have to have a 
Congress that is working for the benefit of and protecting the rights 
of the American people, and they need to mobilize to make sure we are 
doing that by supporting them to make sure that our communities are not 
overrun with illegal immigrants.
  By the way, if you grant amnesty to 25 million illegals, there will 
be a huge surge of people from around the world who will know that all 
they have to do is outlast us, and they will get their amnesty. We need 
to make sure that these decisions, those things--immigration policy and 
trade policy and, yes, intellectual property protection policy--are 
done in a way that will benefit us and will not benefit our 
competitors.

                              {time}  1215

  When I say us, United States, it is us, U-S, us, the American people. 
That should be the basis of our criteria: what is going to be in the 
interests of the American people; not bring down their wages, not let 
people steal our technology and use it to compete against us.
  I ask my colleagues, please pay attention to H.R. 9 and these issues. 
Join with me in supporting the cause of the American people, of us 
instead of the big corporations.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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