Time: Mon Jul 14 21:37:32 1997
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Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 21:36:01 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: Sen. Hatch's Attack on Inventors' Rights -- Phyllis
Schlafly (fwd)
<snip>
>
>Hatch's Attack on Inventors' Constitutional Rights
>
> July 9, 1997
>
> Fast track for NAFTA expansion, Most Favored Nation
> status for China, and foreign aid are all issues that
> pit the internationalist ideologues and
> multinationals against grassroots Americans and small
> business. But the issue that marks this division most
> clearly is the Ominous Patent bill (oops, the Omnibus
> Patent bill), S. 507.
>
> The United States has produced more than 90 percent
> of the world's inventions because our patent system
> is superior to every other country's. Other countries
> that want to steal or copy our technology, and the
> multinationals that want to curry favor with foreign
> markets, are demanding that we change our system.
>
> Senator Orrin Hatch's sponsorship of this bill is one
> more instance of his puzzling lurch to the left,
> along with collaborating on Kennedy KidCare and
> expediting Clinton's liberal court nominees. Hatch
> has rushed a slightly amended S. 507 through his
> Judiciary Committee.
>
> Senate Small Business Committee Chairman Kit Bond
> (R-MO) is circulating a Dear Colleague letter
> pointing out that, even as amended, S. 507 will
> "jeopardize the value, certainty and protection of
> the American patent, threatening the ability of
> independent inventors and small businesses to
> continue their incredible work." Here is why:
>
> (1) Hatch's bill would greatly expand the procedures
> for reexamination of all existing patents, making it
> much easier for foreign and domestic corporations to
> challenge a patent immediately and invalidate patents
> already issued. This would dramatically decrease the
> existing rights of all current U.S. patent holders.
>
> Challenging and defending a patent are very expensive
> processes. Forcing the inventor to defend his patent
> in a second examination puts a very costly burden on
> inventors and small businesses and would be a
> significant advantage to deep-pocket corporations. As
> Senator Bond explains, this "will destroy the
> certainty of a patent that is critical for the small
> guy to attract investors."
>
> (2) Hatch's bill would undercut our whole patent
> system by creating a new defense for patent
> infringers called "prior use." This would exempt from
> the payment of royalties an infringer who asserts he
> was using the idea before it was patented, thereby
> diluting the U.S. patent holder's constitutional
> "exclusive right."
>
> Small businesses that have spent time and money
> creating a new idea and bringing it to market would
> thus have the value of their patent dramatically
> reduced. The advantage would shift to the big firms
> that poach on the ideas of individuals, then use
> large legal resources to avoid the patent process and
> the payment of royalties.
>
> (3) Hatch's bill would change the patent office from
> a government agency to a corporation with an outside
> board of directors and employees excluded from civil
> service. Hatch's big-business bias is painfully
> obvious: the text of S. 507 actually states that the
> directors shall include "individuals" (in the plural)
> with "achievement" in "corporate finance and
> management."
>
> In his amendment, Hatch agreed to allow one member of
> the board to be an independent inventor; but, as
> Senator Bond points out, no space is reserved for a
> small-business representative. Hatch's gesture is
> tokenism, and it certainly does not protect
> inventors' rights.
>
> The bill would even allow corporations to influence
> the patent office through "gifts" (a.k.a. bribes).
> Hatch bragged in his press release that he
> "accommodated the Administration" by "fend[ing] off
> the unjustified but politically appealing attacks on
> the corporation's gift provision."
>
> (4) Hatch's S. 507 as originally introduced would
> have eliminated our traditional rule that all patent
> applications remain secret unless and until a patent
> is actually issued. Although the amended S. 507 now
> includes a limited exception for U.S. inventors
> willing to forgo applying for a foreign patent, early
> publication was and is the primary goal of the
> extraordinary lobbying effort to change our patent
> system being made by the Japanese, the multinationals
> and the Clinton Administration.
>
> Senator Bond accurately points out that the initial
> secrecy about an invention is "the cornerstone of our
> patent system" because it preserves the property
> right of the inventor until he gets his legal rights
> recognized in a patent. Publication of the details of
> an invention before a patent is issued would set it
> up to be stolen by infringers and copycats all over
> the world who are, as Bond says, just "waiting around
> for American ideas to take to market."
>
> The game plan of the lobbyists for the foreigners and
> multinationals is to use the newly created
> corporation, with a board dominated by
> big-corporation types, to accomplish the same goal
> through regulations that never go through Congress.
>
> Last year, FDA Week exposed that Patent Commissioner
> Bruce Lehman had made a deal to give the Chinese the
> entire U.S. patent data base on magnetic tapes,
> including five and a half trillion characters of
> information with technical drawings and chemical
> formulations. Americans have to pay to get this data,
> but Lehman wanted to give this multi-million-dollar
> American asset free to the Chinese.
>
> Senator Bond says that S. 507's changes in our patent
> system would have "enormous consequences." Indeed,
> they would. The consequences are all bad, and S. 507
> has no redeeming value.
>
>----------------------------------------------
>Phyllis Schlafly column 7-09-97
>
>E-mail YOUR SENATOR:
> http://www.senate.gov/senator/membmail.html
>
> PS REPORT
> Patent Report :
> http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/1997/may97/psrmay97.html
>
> COLUMNS
> The Patent Fight Gets Ugly :
> http://www.eagleforum.org/column/1997/may97/97-05-14.html
>
> Who's Interfering with Our Constitutional Patent Rights?
> http://www.eagleforum.org/column/1997/apr97/97-04-15.html
>
>
> NEWS RELEASE:
> http://www.eagleforum.org/patent/news_release.html
>
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Paul Andrew Mitchell : Counselor at Law, federal witness
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