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GBlist: Congress to Sell-Out American Inventors?
- To: Senator Don Balfour <SS9Balfour@aol.com>, tpd@callamer.com, paradime@atl.mindspring.com, greenbuilding@crest.org, senator_max_cleland@cleland.senate.gov, senator_coverdell@coverdell.senate.gov, bbarr@hr.house.gov, jlinder@hr.house.gov, saxby@hr.house.gov, georgia6@hr.house.gov, gra@gra.org, webmaster@mordred.gatech.edu, sales@iarc.com, vice-president@whitehouse.gov, president@whitehouse.gov, webmaster@sierraclub.org, talkmaster@mindspring.com, rush@CompuServe.COM
- Subject: GBlist: Congress to Sell-Out American Inventors?
- From: "John H. Alderman III" <mountain@randomc.com>
- Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 11:14:26 -0400
- Cc: fe@msmail.winrock.org, hazelra@randomc.com
- Disposition-Notification-To: <mountain@randomc.com>
- Sender: owner-greenbuilding@crest.org
It is here a cool Morning in Atlanta , Georgia, So I say to you
individually ..Good Morning....And more importantly as a Group of thinking
important people to me... Good Morning and WAKEUP To this.....
Please a moment of your time . Please moments of your consideration. This
is about the actions taking place to sell out a time provened and honored
pillar of America. This is not Junk Email. This is not an attempt to sell
you something. This is a call to arms of key board and pen. This is about a
threat to the very fabric of American Creativity. I ask that you review the
following that I have attached and move immediately to add your voice and
send it on to notify all that you can so that we may all together take
action before it is too late.
Thankyou for your time and consideration,
John H. Alderman III
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>Date: Tue, 15 Apr 97 16:52:13 -0700
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>Subject: Congress to Sell-Out American Inventors?
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>Security Column * V3X11 * 15/Apr/97 * ISSN 1074-245X
>
>
> Congress To Sell-Out American Inventors?
>
>
> A dangerous --- and if passed disastrous Bill ---
>defrauding U.S. inventors comes before the Congress on
>Thursday, 17 April.
>
> We have documented two previous efforts by multinational
>corporations to weaken or destroy the patents granted to U.S.
>inventors. It would seem that Congress has now picked up where
>the President left off, and is selling what remains of America's
>interests for a few bucks in its campaign coffers. This third
>effort will pass if your Representatives do not hear from you
>before Thursday.
>
> The Bill to kill is HR 400, deceptively named the Patent
>Publication Act. It would in fact publish patents --- before
>they are granted to U.S. inventors. Most inventors, having
>sunk their hearts, minds, and what they have left of their
>wallets into their inventions, would be hard-pressed to find the
>resources to mount a lawsuit against a multi- national
>corporation, which steals their patent from the (mandated)
>publication.
>
> If you wish to be heard on this, we recommend that you urge
>HR 400 be killed, and the Rohrabacher Substitute be adopted.
>There will be bait- and-switch going on, but this wording will
>be safe. The Rohrabacher Substitute will actually restore some
>of the rights already lost in last year's (nearly successful)
>attempt to destroy our intellectual property rights.
>
> A statement from the Congressional Record (5 March 1997) by
>Rep. Rohrabacher has been appended to this release. Following
>Rohrabacher's statement we have appended our release by John
>Trudel from last year, which explains in more detail what is
>going on. The Bill numbers in the Trudel document are outdated,
>but the effects would be similar.
> --- --- ---
>COPYRIGHT 1997 by Conservative Consensus (unless otherwise
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>[Congressional Record: March 5, 1997 (House)]
>[Page H742-H743]
>From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
>[DOCID:cr05mr97-109]
>
>
>
> AMERICA'S TECHNOLOGICAL SECRETS SHOULD BE SAFEGUARDED
>
>
> The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the
>House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] is
>recognized for 5 minutes.
>
> Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today H.R. 400 passed
>through the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property of
>the Committee on the Judiciary. H.R. 400, what I call the
>Steal American Technologies Act, is disguised as a patent reform
>bill.
>
> This bill was first entitled, when it was first introduced
>last year, the Patent Publication Act. Well, people might ask
>themselves, how does the Patent Publication Act all of a sudden
>become a patent reform bill? Well, that is because the patent
>reform bill is a title that does not describe exactly what is
>going on in the bill, but the Patent Publication Act does.
>
> This bill has not changed a bit. The purpose of the bill
>is exactly the same. Now, hold on to your hats, make sure you
>understand the magnitude of what is about to be said.
>
> This bill, H.R. 400, which I call the Steal American
>Technologies Act, mandates that after 18 months, if an inventor
>in the United States applies for a patent, even if his patent
>has not been issued, after 18 months it is mandated that all the
>details of his patent will be published for everybody in the
>world to see and to steal. That is it. Every one of America's
>technological secrets will be mandated to be published so that
>those adversaries in Japan or in China or anywhere else in the
>world will have all the details and probably be able to go into
>production and use our intellectual property, all of our new
>ideas and technological discoveries against the United States of
>America.
>
> That is why I call this the Steal American Technologies
>Act. It is beyond belief that this is going through the House
>of Representatives, but it will be on this floor unless the
>American people call their Congressman or Congresswoman to let
>them know how heinous it is to permit our adversaries to steal
>our technology and use it against us.
>
> This is exactly what is going to happen, because the huge
>multinational corporations who would benefit from stealing our
>technology and not having to pay royalties are in an unholy
>alliance with our own big companies who do not want to pay
>royalties to American inventors.
>
> The idea of course is, oh, it is going to happen anyway.
>These things would have been invented. You put an infinite
>number of inventors in a room with an infinite number of
>typewriters and eventually everything will be invented. No. We
>have had a strong and prosperous country because we have had the
>strongest patent protection of any country of the world. Now
>they are trying to change that, because they are taking away the
>confidentiality of American inventors, they are taking away our
>rights to a guaranteed patent term, and this H.R. 400 also
>obliterates the Patent Office.
>
>{time} 1415
>
> That is right, Mr. Speaker. What this does, H.R. 400,
>the Steal American Technologies Act also would take the Patent
>Office, which is written into the Constitution, and resurrect
>it. As what? A corporatized entity.
>
> Our patent examiners are strong and faithful people, they
>work hard, and the reason they have been able to do a good job
>is because they have been government employees protected from
>outside influences. Now we are changing the entire rules of the
>game, just as America is entering into this new technological
>age.
>
> Mr. Speaker, this is a Pearl Harbor in slow motion. This
>is a catastrophe that will hit our country and destroy our
>standard of living that is based on America being the
>technological leader of the world, and the American people in
>the future will never know what hit them. They will just say,
>wait a minute; did we not used to be the leader in technology?
>Could we not out-compete all these countries? That is because we
>had strong patent protection, and our Founding Fathers knew that
>as long as Americans had this patent protection, we would have
>the ideas and creativity to save our country.
>
> I have a bill in opposition to the Steal American
>Technologies Act. My bill is H.R. 811, and there is a
>companion bill, H.R. 812. That is 811 and 812, which would
>restore to the American people their guaranteed right that has
>been part of our rights as Americans since our Constitution was
>written, for a guaranteed patent term, that is being attacked
>today, will be taken away from them.
>
> My bill guarantees confidentiality, so when our inventors
>come up with new ideas, they are not going to go to our
>adversaries and be used against us. There is not going to be a
>line at the Patent Office for a copying machine, and a line over
>to the fax machine, and get it overseas as soon as possible.
>
> H.R. 812, the companion bill introduced by the gentleman
>from California, Duncan Hunter, will maintain in [[Page H743]]
>the U.S. Government a strong Patent Office and an efficient
>Patent Office to protect us and to make sure that our people are
>serviced well, which is a function, a proper function of
>Government.
>
> This is an attempt to harmonize our law, and those who
>support H.R. 400 will tell us that we need to harmonize our law
>with the rest of the world. No, we need to strengthen the
>protections of the American people.
>
> I ask for the support of my colleagues for H.R. 811 and
>812 in opposition to H.R. 400.
>
>__________
>
>Last Year's Trudel Release
>
>C O N S E R V A T I V E C O N S E N S U S (tm)
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>
>COPYRIGHT 1996 by Conservative Consensus, ISSN 1074-245X.
>Excerpted from our Journal; email subscription below.
>
>QUOTATION and redistribution are encouraged, for private,
>non-commercial use, provided nothing is changed and
>our headers and trailers remain intact. V2XC42
>
>
>DID RON BROWN DIE A TRAITOR?
>
>by John Trudel
>
> At its core, high technology business needs legal
>protection. From the days of Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison,
>innovators have depended on the US patent system to protect the
>unique value they created. It has protected us since about 1790.
>
> Today, this protection has become absolutely
>essential. "...knowledge has become the key economic resource and
>the dominant, if not the only, source of competitive advantage."
>(Peter Drucker, Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1994). Firms like
>Microsoft, Intel, and Motorola derive most of their market value
>from intellectual property. Without patent protection, Silicon
>Valley and the Venture Capital community could not exist.
>
> I recently learned something astonishing. The
>Clinton administration has made promises to Japan that will end
>life-as-we-know-it for knowledge based business in the US.
>
> While visiting a client to give workshops, I met an
>official from the US patent office. He told me some startling
>things. The administration promised the Japanese that we will make
>the US patent filings public information after 18 months. If that
>sticks, effective January 1, 1996 all your competitors can get
>them.
>
> The worst news is hidden. Embedded in the middle of
>the official's talk was a phrase, "reexamination rights." Alarm
>bells went off in my mind, though he brushed by that topic. Did
>that mean that any US firm unfortunate enough to have patents will
>be subject to endlessly defending them against reexamination by
>the Japanese keiretsus?
>
> Guarded in public, the official admitted that my
>worst fears were valid when we spoke privately. The public servant
>likened the event to Japan's World War II surrender on the USS
>Missouri. Some were gleefully calling Tokyo on their cellular
>phones to report, "The US has given us its patent system."
>
> How could I find proof that this happened? Why
>hasn't someone blown the whistle? Why didn't the press report
>this? It took months and many details are still unclear, but I got
>most of the squalid tale.
>
> The proof is contained in one paragraph (on page 26)
>of the voluminous 1994 Commissioner's Report to Congress, "Working
>for our Customers." Free copies can be obtained by calling the
>patent office at (703)305-8600. The sell out occurred in letters
>of agreement between Secretary of Commerce Ron H. Brown and
>Japanese Ambassador Takahazu Kuriyama dated August 16, 1994.
>
> Brown's Patent Commissioner, Bruce A. Lehman, is
>politically correct and well-connected. Like Brown a former
>lobbyist, Lehman is Brown's tool to use patent law for policy. NY
>Times (May 29, 1994) reports his personal heroes are Bill Clinton
>and Martin Luther King. With a "trademark temper," Lehman's status
>as Clinton's highest placed open gay makes him sacrosanct. He
>chortles, "[conservative Republicans] all know me... and they
>don't want to make a martyr of me." Crossing Lehman is career
>limiting in Washington.
>
> Brown's sell out was superbly managed. The press
>said little, and nothing at all that I can find about broadened
>reexamination. A few inventor groups voiced shock that "a treaty
>of this nature should be signed without any warning" (NY Times,
>August 17, 1994). Lehman hammered them. They "had an ax to grind,"
>and were "misled, unsophisticated and don't have access to the
>right information."
>
> The slam dunk that closed press interest came when
>Harold C. Wegner, a professor of law at George Washington
>University and an authority on international patent law, defended
>Lehman saying, "He got something for nothing. It's a brilliant
>trade."
>
> Major effort is being devoted to position this as
>accomplished fact. Lehman is giving road shows to convince patent
>lawyers that this is only a minor technical accommodation to
>"harmonize" US law with international practice.
>
> The unholy combination of NAFTA, GATT, first-to-
>invent, opening files after 18 months, and the new meaning of
>reexamination is poisonous. Experts are confused, so check the
>business implications carefully. If blunder, I fear this is major.
>If perfidy, Brown's acts are monumental.
>
> Ron Brown, President Clinton's Secretary of
>Commerce, is systematically presiding over the dismantlement of
>our patent system. Whether he succeeds or not is largely up to
>people like you.
>
> If citizens, including corporate citizens, don't
>take prompt and effective action the unique patent system that has
>protected us since 1790 will be gone forever.
>
> Effective last June, Congress reduced the term of
>patents from 17 years after issue to 20 years after being filed.
>This single act cuts the dollar value of your patent protection by
>up to half. One lone bill, HR 359 attempts to fix this. Support HR
>359.
>
> Several bills now in Congress -- HR 1732, HR 1733,
>and HR 2235 -- will complete Brown's patent sell out. For a
>finale, HR 1659 quite literally sells off the US patent office.
>
> For more information, see my columns in Upside and
>Electronic Design. Also, a small group of inventors has been
>opposing Brown's steam roller. Contact Alliance for American
>Innovation, 1100 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite 1200, Washington DC
>20036-4104 (202)293-1414. Low-budget Web sites are under
>construction: try www.best.com/~ipc.
>
> Do institutions matter? In researching our next
>book, Engines of Prosperity, my co-author, Dr. Gerardo Ungson
>found Americans don't think so. We prefer to complain,
>ineffectively, about "unfair" trade practices.
>
> Others build and use institutions for competitive
>advantage. Our trading partners are not a bit shy about exploiting
>their institutions (keiretsu, chaebol, etc.) for advantage, but
>our patent system is the best in the world. It works superbly.
>
> Patents are our institutional advantage. Why do we
>want to change? Why harmonize? What is wrong with daring to be
>different?
>
>[Copyright 1995 by John D. Trudel, CMC, CPC. Used with permission.
>Mr. Trudel is a management consultant. This article originally
>appeared in his newsletter, Business Innovation Update, 4th
>quarter 1995, where it was titled The Great Patent Sell Out. Mr.
>Trudel may be reached at 33470 Chinook Place, Scappoose, OR 97056.
>Telephone (503)640-5599. Email JohnTrudel@aol.com or Website at
>http://members/aol.com/johntrudel/index.htm.]
>____________
>
>Editor's Update: Effective 3 July 1996, HR 359 (the inventor-
>friendly bill) had not been voted out of the Patents and Trademark
>Committee. HR 3460, the great patent sellout, is on the House
>floor and could be voted on anytime after the 4th of July holiday
>recess. Efforts will be made to amend HR 3460 with the text of HR
>359, so you can see the fight may be difficult to follow.
>
>HR 3460, the patent sellout, now incorporates several bills:
>
> * HR 1659 privatizes the patent office;
> * HR 1733 requires pre-grant publication of patent
> applications;
> * HR 2235 gives companies prior user rights to use what they
> keep secret but others later invent and patent;
> * HR 1732 allows third parties to participate in the
> reexamination process allowing them to delay the process;
> * HR 2419 would stop patent scams. This is desirable as it
> outlaws invention marketing scam organizations, but it was
> put in HR 3460 to sugar coat a poison pill. [Source:
> Intellectual Property Creators www.best.com/~ipc]
>
>A more detailed summary appeared in Conservative Consensus 18 June
>1996 issue:
>
> SEVERAL BILLS DAMAGING to the US Patent system and inventors
> are pending before Congress.
>
> HR 3460 is essentially an adoption of the Japanese system,
> which favors multinational companies over individual
> inventors.
>
> HR 1732, the "Patent Reexamination Reform Act of 1995,"
> allows foreign companies to bring their full legal resources
> to bear against any individual inventor. This challenge to an
> issued patent circumvents the Federal court system. The
> company behind the reexamination hires an attorney who is
> named as the examination Requester. After an examination is
> completed, another, and another, and another, request can be
> filed. A Requester is allowed to participate in the
> reexamination. A patent cannot be realistically enforced
> while a reexamination is in progress.
>
> HR 1733, the "Patent Application Publication Act of 1995", is
> the 18 months pre-grant publication of patent information. It
> will prematurely disclose an American invention to foreign
> countries so they can begin production of the invention
> before its inventor has any protection. The 18 months pre-
> grant publication violates the original intent of our
> founding fathers to grant an applicant a patent in exchange
> for full disclosure.
>
> HR 2235, prior user rights, will will lead to a first-to-file
> system which means first to the patent office -- not first to
> invent -- and is contrary to the Constitutional protection
> for inventors.
>
> HR 1659 privatizes the Patent office. The company will have a
> CEO with no substantive review of his actions. [Source: The
> Alliance for Innovation at 800-308-6933]
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______________________________________________________________
John H. Alderman III Mountain Ice/AlderHood/AlderCool
4318 Castle Gate Drive AlderLab / AlderWatch / AlderWave
Lithonia, GA
30058-6869 AlderTech Consulting / Alderstore
PO Box 1685 mountain@randomc.com
Decatur, GA 30031-1685 http://www.randomc.com/~mountain/
770-985-8849 voice 770-985-2902 fax 770-699-1529 page
CN3634GA Former USN NEC 3361/4245
USEPA CERT HAZMAT
Former Scoutmaster
now Asst Scoutmaster Troop 107,
Decatur,Georgia,USA
founded August 1911
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