[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5422-5424]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




INTERNATIONAL CORPORATIONS DESTROYING THE PATENT RIGHTS OF THE AMERICAN 
                                 PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Rohrabacher) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw the attention of 
the American people and my colleagues to an issue that is rapidly 
coming to the floor of the House, and it is an issue that is coming so 
rapidly that some people might not notice the overwhelming magnitude of 
this issue.
  In fact, it is an issue that most people are bored with. They don't 
like to discuss it. They think it is so complicated that they don't pay 
any attention. Unfortunately, the fact that little attention is being 
paid to this issue may result in there being major damage to the well-
being of the American people.
  What I am trying to say is there is legislation that will cause great 
harm to the American people, to our security, and to our prosperity. It 
is something that is coming to a vote, and we could well lose unless 
the American people mobilize and the people in this Hall pay attention 
to the interests of the American people as a whole and not to major 
international corporations that have been manipulating this issue.
  What am I talking about? I am talking about an issue that has over 
the years been taken for granted, that America would be the preeminent 
technology power in the world. In fact, it has been our technology 
superiority that has led to the prosperity of average Americans, to the 
standard of living that we have, and also to our safety and security as 
a nation.
  It isn't that Americans have worked so hard--and we have worked 
hard--but we have coupled work with technology. In fact, people work 
hard all over the world, but they have not had the patent protection, 
the protection for the intellectual rights of ownership in the 
development of new technology. The people around the world haven't had 
this; thus, they have had standards of living very low for ordinary 
people and then, of course, the rich at the top.
  What we have had in our country is a protection of intellectual 
property rights by inventors. It is actually written into our 
Constitution. In fact, the word ``right'' is only used once in the body 
of the Constitution. There are the Bill of Rights in the latter part, 
but the word ``right'' is only related to the right that the 
Constitution declares for those who are writers and inventors who have 
created something, and they have the right to control it and to own it 
for a given period of time.
  This has worked so well for the United States. We have made sure that 
our people were competitive with the overseas populations, that our 
people produced the wealth that was necessary for high-paying jobs, 
produced the wealth that was necessary for standards of living. It 
comes back to the fact that we have recognized, as a right of 
ownership, the creativity genius of our own people.
  Over the last two decades, most people have not understood that there 
has been a concealed effort to destroy the patent rights of the 
American people.
  Let me repeat that. For the last two decades, we have been fighting 
quietly--people haven't even noticed it--against large international 
corporations, multinationals, who would destroy the patent rights of 
the American people.

                              {time}  1900

  Why did they want to do that? Because they want to steal the creation 
of our own inventors without having to pay for that right. This is the 
ultimate little guy versus big guy, David and Goliath fight that I have 
ever seen in Washington, D.C., but it is also one of the quietest and 
one that people have tried their best to keep out of the public eye.
  So how is it that Congress could even conceive of this, where you 
have big corporations coming to say let's neuter the rights of the 
little guy or of little Americans? How would this happen? How could 
anyone imagine that a representative body like the House of 
Representatives would do anything like that?
  Well, of course, they are not coming to this body--and they are not 
going to the committee of jurisdiction, which is the Committee on the 
Judiciary--claiming that they want to steal from little guys and that 
they want to take people's ideas and use them without paying 
compensation for them. No, they don't say that.
  They have had to create what I call the straw man argument. Now, that 
is a traditional way of debate. It is in the debate books. If you can't 
beat your opponent in a debate, create a straw man, create an image 
that you are actually attacking this guy, the straw man, when in 
reality you are attacking somebody else. Somebody else is going to 
suffer the pain.
  So this man's arguments, the straw man arguments, you can handle 
them. You can say how horrible that straw man is and his arguments mean 
nothing, well, because that is not really the guy who is being 
attacked. It is the other man and woman down there, the small 
inventors. They are the ones who are going to feel it. But yet you 
don't hear that from those proponents of the legislation that, as I am 
warning people, is on the way to the House floor.
  This straw man argumentation was first used 20 years ago when I got 
here. They were trying to suggest that we have to make major changes in 
our patent law because there are these heinous submarine patents. Over 
and over and over again, the submarine patents were having such a 
horrible impact on business because they would come up and charge 
people for patents that the business didn't even know existed.
  Well, submarine patents, that went away. They no longer talk about 
submarine patents. Now the boogeyman that is helping them create a 
straw man argument that will result in the massive theft of 
intellectual property rights from America's most creative people, the 
boogeyman now is called the patent troll. That is it: the patent troll. 
These huge corporations have spent millions--tens of millions, if not 
hundreds of millions--of dollars over these last few years trying to 
promote this image that there is a patent troll out there--that sounds 
sinister, doesn't it?--that has to be defeated. They have proposed 
legislation in the name of defeating a patent troll, because that 
sounds very sinister, rather than legislation that permits large 
corporations to get away with stealing the patent rights from small 
inventors in the United States.
  Well, how did this ``troll'' word come about? It is a relatively new 
word. As I say, when I first got here, they were calling them 
``submarine patents,'' that is the evil force. Well, ``troll'' came 
about--I had a businessman who was an executive of a major company who 
has actually now changed sides, and he has decided, my gosh, no, he 
can't go along with this destruction of Americans' rights to own what 
they have created. He told me about how it was decided.
  He was in a room with senior executives, mainly from the electronics 
industry. They went around the room saying, now, what is the most 
sinister-sounding word that we can come up with in order to divert the 
attention of the people away from the fact that our real target is 
these small inventors, because everybody has a soft spot in their heart 
for small inventors, so they are going to create a false image some 
way. What can we do? What word can we use to fool the American people 
into thinking that this is an evil force that we are trying to stop 
when, in reality, they are trying to beat down small inventors?
  Well, they went around the room, the guy was telling me, and he said: 
I actually suggested that they use the word ``patent pirate,'' the 
``patent pirate.'' That is how horrible it is. But, no, by the time 
they got around to the end of the group, to the last part of the group, 
they had all heard ``patent troll,'' which is even worse than ``patent 
pirate.'' So they all agreed that this would be the word that we will 
use to

[[Page 5423]]

deceive the American people. That is what it was all about. This 
businessman was very upfront with me about the cynical nature of this 
type of manipulation.
  Well, obviously no one could come here and say, ``We want to 
eliminate the rights of the American people to sue for damages,'' and 
we can't eliminate the rights of small inventors to actually try to get 
their money for something that they have invented and spent their whole 
lifetime trying to create, but what they can do is try to get 
legislation that will eliminate the ability of patent trolls to 
function.
  Well, unfortunately, every single item that is being presented as a 
means to control patent trolls actually does what? It hurts every 
single one of them, does damage to little guys trying to protect their 
patent rights.
  By the way, everything they are presenting in this legislation would 
be the equivalent if someone says: Well, we have got this horrible 
thing about frivolous lawsuits. Because, in fact, what the businessmen 
often are complaining about and claiming that trolls are being the ones 
who are doing this, what they are really talking about are frivolous 
lawsuits.
  Well, there are frivolous lawsuits throughout our entire justice 
system and court system. Would we then say that because there are some 
lawyers who are willing to scam the system or that we know that there 
are some people who will file frivolous lawsuits that we should 
eliminate the rights of the American people to sue for damages when 
they have been damaged by someone or sue to protect their rights when 
their rights have been violated? No. But that is what is going on here.
  In the name of stopping the trolls, which they made up the term, we 
are being asked to support legislation that dramatically eliminates the 
rights and protections of honest inventors, although that is not what 
is being said every time there is a debate--``We are for the small 
inventor; we are for the small inventor,'' when every single one of the 
provisions hurts the small inventor.
  What is happening, basically, is we are seeing that the legislation 
being pushed forward now is under a bill, which is H.R. 9. It is 
already in the committee. It was a bill that went through last year. 
What happened is, yes, it went through last year with the same sort of, 
``Oh, we are not really trying to hurt the little guy,'' but knowing 
that is what it was doing because what happened is, yeah, the 
legislation passed this body. The legislation passed this body.
  To show you how bad it was, I managed to lead the fight and have one 
amendment that got one of the bad provisions out. You know what that 
provision was? The provision was, if a small inventor feels that the 
Patent Office has not been dealing with him on a legal basis, on a 
legitimate basis, that he no longer has the right to take his case to 
court. They were eliminating the right of our inventors to take their 
case to court when their government isn't operating legally.
  Now, we managed to push that one back. Unfortunately, the other 
provisions of the bill moved forward. But guess what. Even though it 
would hurt small inventors and technology investors and universities, 
that bill went forward out of this body, but it was stopped in the 
Senate. It was stopped in the Senate because some of these technology 
laboratories and some small inventors as well, but mainly the 
universities, stepped forward and said: Wait a minute. You are trying 
to supposedly get patent trolls, but what you are doing is going to 
undercut us. It was analyzed that the result of that legislation, if 
signed into law and passed through the Senate, would have decreased the 
value of patents owned by our universities.
  Now, that is a major source of their income is their patents because 
they have laboratories and research centers. That would have negated 
about half the value of the patents that they own. This would have been 
a disaster. Luckily, the universities spoke up, and they need to speak 
up in the House this time because it is the same bill they are trying 
to put through the House, and they are trying to ship it over to the 
Senate again. We need to make sure that we mobilize and let those 
people in elected office, whether they are a Congressman or a Senator, 
know that they have to pay attention to what the effects of this will 
be on our universities, what it will be on--yes, and on the small 
inventors. It is unconscionable that we have these huge multinational 
corporations in a power grab like this.
  Why is it that they are able to do this, this attack on little guys, 
on average Americans who have dedicated their life to developing a new 
technological idea? Why? Why is that? Well, because they are able to 
give major campaign contributions. I am not talking about anybody's 
vote being bought. I don't believe that that happens here. I know that 
a lot of people claim that, but I don't claim that. What I do know is 
that contributors get the attention of the Member of Congress or the 
Senator. That is what happens.
  These big megacorporations--and they are multinational corporations 
by and large--have bought the attention of these people and have made 
their argument. So we have 90 percent of the Members of Congress and 
the Senate who are yawning and nobody is talking to them about the 
bill, but they have got these other 10 percent with their best friends 
who have donated to their campaigns actually are able to make the 
argument.
  If we are to protect our prosperity, if we are to protect our 
security, we have got to move forward and interact with those people 
who are elected to represent us in the Congress and the United States 
Senate. That is the only thing that will thwart these multinationals 
and their ability to buy the attention of a certain number of Members 
of Congress.
  The Congress will not pay attention unless the universities, unless 
the average working people, the voters in their district come and see 
them and talk to them and say: We do not want our rights to be 
diminished. We don't want any of our rights, but especially our patent 
rights, which are the rights that protect our jobs because it makes us 
competitive with overseas. It produces wealth enough for average people 
to live well in our country.
  Well, we need to make sure that these huge corporations don't run 
roughshod over the rest of us because they, themselves, now, as I say, 
they haven't bought votes; they bought attention. We need to call 
attention to this issue, and it is up before the Committee on the 
Judiciary. We are talking about H.R. 9, a piece of legislation that 
will do a tremendous damage to the American people by cutting off the 
very constitutional right that our Founding Fathers knew was so 
important, and that is the right to own, for a given period of time, 
any type of technology creation and creative genius that you have as a 
writer or an inventor.
  This is the little guys versus the big guys. This is David versus 
Goliath. I will tell you, we little guys need to stick together. If we 
do, we will win. That is what America is all about. We can and will 
win. We will not let cynical, powerful forces like those who sit around 
the room and say: What is the bad word that we can come up with that 
will scare everybody into supporting our restrictions and our 
diminishing of patent rights? The cynical people came up with the word 
``troll.''
  Well, what is wrong with this, by the way? Let me just note that this 
bill, H.R. 9, will greatly diminish patent protection, but, for 
example, it destroys the right of discovery. It means that if people 
actually invest in a small inventor--let's say someone, a small 
inventor needs an investor. Of course they do. They are not like these 
huge corporations. They need someone to invest. But later on, the big 
corporation does what? Steals that invention. In order to what? These 
big corporations are sued all the time for infringement.

                              {time}  1915

  What infringement means is they are arrogantly taking something that 
belongs to somebody else, something that has been patented, and 
ignoring the patent, putting it into their product, and then say, 
``Well, sue me,'' knowing that the little guys have trouble suing 
because they don't have the money.

[[Page 5424]]

  Well, if anybody has invested in that inventor and the investor sues 
for infringement--let's say his lawyers aren't as good and he loses 
that case--well, now, they are changing the rules here. All of a 
sudden, all of the expenses of that big company, the legal expenses, 
will have to be picked up by that small inventor.
  Oh, my gosh, what happens when that happens? You will never get 
anybody to invest in that small inventor because the law not only says 
the inventor will pay for the cost of asking for the infringement case, 
but anybody who has invested in his invention will also have to bear 
that burden. Who is going to want to become liable if a big company 
starts stealing and they can't prove it in court?
  The bill destroys treble damages. Right now, if a big company decides 
to steal from a little guy--well, if the little guy can prove this guy 
knew that that was my patent and he is stealing my intellectual 
property, if he can prove that, he will get treble damages. That is 
triple damages.
  Well, that has been what we have had all along. That permits the 
little guy to have legal counsel because, if it is just simply getting 
the money back that he has lost, this is damages, because he gets a 
certain amount because he has been violated.
  Well, if you eliminate that, how will these little guys get a lawyer? 
Now, these big guys are trying to eliminate triple damages so the 
little guys can't get lawyers. By doing these things, H.R. 9 will 
dramatically decrease the value of patents held by our major 
universities, held by retirement accounts, held by our laboratories--
the people who own these patents.
  Now, by the way, let me tell you what they claim a patent troll to be 
and how they claim that this is bad. A patent troll, according to these 
huge corporate interests, is someone who didn't invest in something but 
now has the rights to sue them because that investor--the ``troll''--
has purchased the patent rights to certain technologies.
  Let me note that a patent sometimes runs around 10 to 20 years that a 
patent owner can own his patent. An inventor gets granted the patent, 
and for 17 years, they own that patent.
  Well, many of them don't have any money, and they can't even develop 
it, so they have to have investors. Some of them face the theft of 
their technology, and they don't have the money to put out, and they, 
themselves, challenge in court that their rights have been violated.
  It is like a piece of property. If somebody comes and builds a 
railroad track across your property and refuses to give you any 
compensation for it, well, you have a right to sue; but some of the 
little guys don't have enough money to sue.
  Well, in this case, what we have got is legal entities that are not 
involved with actually the invention, but they will come in and say, I 
will invest in your patent so you will have enough money to sue these 
big guys because they are stealing from you--or they just buy the 
patent outright, and then they own that property for a given period of 
time, and then they sue.
  There is nothing wrong, I believe, with someone stepping forward and 
buying the property rights of an inventor and then enforcing it through 
our court system. There is nothing wrong with that, but we have been 
told that these are all frivolous lawsuits by the trolls.
  Well, they are not. Some of them are like this, a troll--supposedly, 
by that name--is nothing more than an investor who has bought the 
property rights of an inventor, of the person who owned the property in 
the first place.
  What we have is these multinational corporations trying to vilify 
someone who comes in and buys patent rights from small inventors and 
then using that person to destroy all of the patent rights of the small 
inventor.
  Luckily, we have a bill in the Senate, which is S. 632. It is Chris 
Coons from Delaware who actually has a piece of legislation to try to 
strengthen people's patent rights, and it eliminates some of the--you 
might say--bad tactics that were used by people who were involved with 
frivolous lawsuits in the technology area. He takes care of that 
without greatly diminishing the patent rights of real inventors.
  We also have a bill with Representative John Conyers here in the 
House, and that bill protects the small guy while trying to improve the 
Patent Office. By the way, what his bill does is ensure that all the 
patent fees that go into the Patent Office stay there and, thus, 
improve the quality of the patents that our people have.
  Over a billion dollars has been taken from the Patent Office in the 
last 10 years and goes into the general fund when it should be spent 
trying to protect--and trying to make the system work--intellectual 
property ownership by inventors.
  That is the last I have on that piece of legislation, which is H.R. 
9, which deserves the attention of the American people.
  I would like to end my time tonight talking about one other issue 
very quickly. Today, I introduced legislation, H.R. 1940, which 
basically says that the Federal Government shall not interfere in those 
States that have eliminated the penalties on marijuana use and sales or 
have allowed the operation of medical marijuana dispensaries.
  This legislation, H.R. 1940, would basically leave it up to the 
States as to whether or not people should be permitted to use 
marijuana, especially medical marijuana.
  I don't see any reason why the people of the United States should 
face the type of controls and the type of police state activity that 
impacts their lives by people--whether they are well meaning or not--
who have set up, basically, a bureaucratic law enforcement state that 
activates and prevents people from living their own lives.
  If, indeed, someone is using marijuana--for medical purposes 
especially, but also even for recreational use--if someone is in their 
backyard, smoking some marijuana, we should not spend limited dollars.
  We have limited tax dollars here. We are cutting off veterans' 
benefits, cutting down on people who need help, but then we are 
spending it on trying to put in jail someone who is smoking marijuana 
in their backyard or trying to supply someone with the marijuana to 
smoke in their backyard. That is absolutely absurd.
  My bill, H.R. 1940, will insist that, if a State has legalized the 
use of marijuana or the medical use of marijuana, the Federal 
Government cannot infringe upon that.
  It is sort of like you see a guy over in the corner of a park, and he 
is surrounded by policemen, and they throw him to the ground, and they 
handcuff him and put him in jail, and they go through the court 
procedures with the judges and all these expenses for smoking 
marijuana, versus the other end of the park, where some lady is getting 
raped, but there is no policeman there, and they spend all of their 
money focusing on the people who are smoking marijuana. That makes no 
sense.
  When you have limited dollars, we should especially respect people's 
right to live their own lives; and, if they make mistakes, which they 
do, they will have to live with those mistakes.
  I would ask my colleagues to support H.R. 1940, which is consistent 
with criminal law should be made at the State and local level and not 
at the Federal level. We should not have a Federal police force 
knocking in doors, going into people's homes, and spending huge amounts 
of money in order to prevent people from personal consumption behavior.
  I would ask my colleagues, if you believe in liberty, believe what 
our Founding Fathers believed in, support a strong patent system and 
oppose H.R. 9 and support my legislation, H.R. 1940, which will restore 
to the American people and to the States therein the right to control 
criminal law and their own personal behavior.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________