Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And the time on the other side?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I yield myself 3 minutes. Let's just note when we are talking, Ms. Kaptur and Mr. Manzullo talk about one of the horrible provisions of the bill, which changes the whole concept of how damages are assessed, and who has benefited by this. We have to ask ourselves, we talk about the Wright brothers, the little guys who actually made all the difference in whether or not America has a high standard of living, the damages that these inventors have when people violate their rights and how those damages are assessed. That's right in this legislation. Yes, they are changing it to the benefit of the infringers. They are beating down the little guys, making it more difficult for the Wright brothers and for all the other little guys who have come up with these ideas in order to help the big corporations. By the way, let me just add this thought: we are not just talking about American corporations here. We are not talking about making inventors just vulnerable to the big American corporations. We are talking about multinational corporations, and we are talking about foreign corporations. Our little guys, with just this change, are going to be dramatically damaged. Their ability, in order to protect their rights, will be dramatically reduced. This is just one example of the type of diminishing of the rights of the inventor in this bill. Yet, we aren't able to discuss it fully. One hour of debate for a bill that's being described here as one of the most important pieces of legislation in the century? One hour of debate in which the opposition was not given a chance to control any time in opposition? This is a disgrace. What's going on? This alone should raise the red flag to all of our Members saying something is going on here; there is a power play people in our legislation aren't being able to control their time. What's happening here? We have a manager's amendment now that was permitted to be changed after it left committee. There wasn't even a proper debate on this bill then and this manager's amendment in the committee, much less the subcommittee. So what we have here is a power play by somebody. The rules don't count when it comes to the bill, because somebody out there really wants it really bad in order to not give us a chance to give the other side, not give the full committee a chance even to discuss these details that are changed in the manager's amendment, not to let the subcommittee play its role. Now, all I am suggesting is this should raise a red flag for all of our Members. All of us should be aware that when these types of shenanigans are being played, something is going on, that the legislation that's being pushed through probably is not good legislation, but, instead, helps a small group of powerful people.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. First and foremost, let us note that over and over again we hear, well, they are not opposing the bill. Well, the labor unions and others, many of them are opposing the bill. But the ones you're describing, you're just saying they aren't necessarily supporting the bill. What we are saying, they are not supporting the bill. This has been reconfirmed by what my colleagues have said in the last 10 minutes. Also, let us note, over and over again we hear, we're going to work this out. We're going to work all these things out in the bill as it moves through the process, which means to all of us there are major flaws in this bill, huge flaws in this bill, and we have to take it just on faith that they're going to work out all these flaws as it goes through the process. I would suggest that we take this, we vote ``no'' on this bill, and then let's correct those flaws and come back to the floor when you've got a bill that isn't flawed. Let's go back to the floor when you can support a bill with an honest debate and not be so afraid of a debate that you'll neuter the chances and mute our opposition voices by giving us almost no time to discuss the issues. I would yield to my friend, Ms. Kaptur.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to yield 5 minutes of the 10 minutes in opposition to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for her to control that time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. There it is. The bottom line is, you go through this bill and there are about 20 different provisions like the damage provision that you're talking about, and each and every one of them is designed to weaken the protection and hurt the person who's the innovator. And what has been our greatest asset in the United States of America? Is that we protected those innovators. If the gentleman would yield for one moment, we do have a gentleman with us from Maine who would like to say a few words, and I would yield whatever time you would consume to Congressman Michaud from Maine.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I appreciate that. I think that we need to understand that there are so many parts of this bill, as Mr. Manzullo has pointed out, whether we are talking about damages or whether we are talking about challenges before and after the patent can be filed and hoops to be jumped through, each and every one of them designed basically to thwart the little guy, thwart the inventor. And, as I said, the group behind it, the electronics industry, their purpose, I believe, is to be able to promote the theft. But what do they say? What do the people who are the proponents of this legislation say is their motive? They claim that we have to have this patent reform in order to harmonize the patent laws of the United States with those of the rest of the world. Harmonization. Well, we have had the strongest patent protection of any country on this planet, which has guaranteed the success of our country and the high standard of living of our people. That is what we got from the strongest patent protection because we considered that strong protection of our rights the same protection that we would give for speech or freedom of religion or the other rights that we hold sacred. Well, if we have the strongest patent rights in the world, patent protections in the world, and if we want to harmonize them with the rest of the world, that means we are going to decrease the protection of our citizens. What would happen if we told our citizens in order to have harmony with the rest of the world's laws, we are going to meld them all together and harmonize our laws of freedom of speech and religion with the rest of the world and we would be told, well, maybe we could enjoy the freedoms now at the level of the people of Singapore or someplace like that? Well, there would be a revolt in this country if we tried to diminish the protections of our people to harmonize it with the rest of the world. But that is what they are doing for the economic freedom that we are talking about today. The economic rights of our people are being harmonized in terms of their ownership of their creation, their patents and innovations. They want to harmonize that with the rest of the world. Well, if there should be one standard for the rest of the world, let them harmonize with our laws. Let us bring up their standards. The Japanese and the Europeans do have a different standard on this, and that is why the Japanese are incapable of creating new technologies. They just take what we have and try to improve it. The fact is we have had the strongest patent protection rights in the world and we have thus had more innovation and a higher standard of living of any other people of the world. The common man here has had the opportunity that common people in other parts of the world do not have because of American technological superiority. We can't let those who profit already by setting up factories in China and other dictatorships that are totally contrary to our way of life to tell us they want to make even more money to be able to steal even the technology and the new ideas so that those factories over there will be able to produce the newest and cutting-edge technologies coming out of our innovators even before our innovators are able to commercialize it in the United States. Well, perhaps if you are a corporate elitist, the idea of harmonizing our rights with the rest of the world and harmonizing our property and bringing down certain levels of protection makes sense. If you are a corporate leader who lives behind a gated community and you are not affected by the fact that American workers are becoming less competitive because we are sending our technology overseas, no, you don't understand that because you are in the corporate boardroom. But the American people understand that. And that is why the unions are against this bill. That is why we have a broad coalition of Democrats and Republicans against H.R. 1908. What we have is a disguised destruction of the fundamental patent system that has been in place in our country for a long time, for over 200 years. As I read, it was part of our own Constitution. Well, this attempt to steal the little guy's creation is not new to our country. Even with our patent protection, it has been a rough haul for our inventors. There is a statue in the Capitol of the United States. There are many statues in the Capitol. My favorite statue is right downstairs. It is the statue of Philo Farnsworth. Anyone visiting the Capitol, I would suggest, should go see the statue of Philo Farnsworth. It's there with the rest of the heroes of freedom and a bunch of politicians who have made statues to themselves. Philo Farnsworth was the quintessential American inventor, individual inventor. He was a poor person, of course, but had limited education, probably a master's degree. I'm not really sure what his education level was. But he came from a rural area in Utah, and through his own creative instincts and his understanding of physics and other theories and electronics, he was able early in the last century to fully understand how to create a picture tube. He was actually the ``father of television.'' RCA at that time had spent hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars investigating, doing research, trying to find the secret of how you could turn radio waves into a television tube. They never were successful. He discovered it. He was the one who had the breakthrough idea of how it could be done. Philo Farnsworth. And he wrote to RCA and said, I have discovered this. I understand you are doing a lot of research. I know how to do it. And the head of RCA's research department came out all the way on a train to see Philo, and he went through his small laboratory and showed him what he had discovered. And it was with an understanding that Philo, perhaps a very naive understanding, was going to work with RCA and develop this picture tube so all of the American people would have now a whole new way of life with the television set. And television has changed our way of life. The guy from RCA took all the notes, and he sped away on the train back to New York, saying, ``We're going to get right back to you so we can get moving on the development of this technology.'' Well, Philo waited and he waited, and there never was a phone call from New York. And guess what. He read in the paper a few months later that RCA had made a huge discovery, and it was the discovery of how to produce the television picture tube and how they had had this incredible breakthrough in their laboratories. Philo Farnsworth fought for 20 years to get recognition that he was indeed the inventor of the picture tube. It was an incredible fight. David Sarnoff, an arrogant head of RCA, a corporate leader who could give a darn about little guys like Philo Farnsworth, ended up doing what? Instead of paying royalties and recognizing and giving credit to this wonderful inventor, he decided to smash him like a bug, decided to fight him and use every bit of the treasure that was available to RCA to beat this guy into submission, this little guy who thought he had the right to challenge the great David Sarnoff. It went all the way to the Supreme Court. And God bless America, the Supreme Court decided for little Philo Farnsworth against one of the great arrogant corporate giants in America, David Sarnoff. Unfortunately, Philo Farnsworth, by that time most of the patent time had run out, he never made much money from his great discovery that changed the world we live in. But I will tell you, today, as you go through the Nation's Capitol, you can take a look at the statue of Philo Farnsworth right here and you can understand that we pass laws here to make sure the rights of the little guy are protected, even when that little guy is in a fight with a powerful interest like RCA. David Sarnoff does not have a statue in this Capitol. So let us note this, that in this Capitol is the statue to the little guy and to the rights of the little guy. Tomorrow we will face a bill, H.R. 1908, that is designed to smash down the little guys, the inventors, so that arrogant corporate giants can steal their technology, corporate giants who do business overseas who consider themselves globalists and multi-nationalists taking American technology overseas. That's what is at hand. That is the issue that is being discussed. Mr. Speaker, I would call on my colleagues to join me and Marcy Kaptur and members of the Democrat Party and Republican Party who are watching out for the little guy tomorrow. Join with the universities and the unions and other corporate interests and manufacturers in the United States who are trying to protect intellectual properties so they can compete overseas. Join us in defeating the Steal American Technologies Act II, H.R. 1908. And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, I will.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I think that's a good description.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I appreciate the support of the gentleman from Maine for this position. It lets us know that this is as bipartisan an issue as any one that I have ever been on. From day one it was Marcy Kaptur and others who have played a major role in this fight. We have unions who are traditionally supporting the Democratic Party who are very deeply involved in this fight, right alongside small businesses, which quite generally have been Republicans. So this goes across the board. This is an issue, because it is the American people who are going to suffer the consequences. We need to ask ourselves, if all of these groups are against it, who the heck is for this bill? And this is a power grab. This is a classic power grab, and it's being headed by companies that are basically controlled by billionaires from the electronics industry. Now, let's take a look at the electronics industry. What do they want to do? The electronics industry has a product that they have to include various elements that are created by innovators and by inventors. This isn't like the pharmaceutical industry or a small business person or the biotech industry or the nanotech industry. Usually, what we've got with those industries, we've got one new invention or one creative improvement that serves as the basis for their profit. No, when you're in the electronics industry you have a computer or some other type of piece of electronics that has three or four elements in it, and if an inventor comes up with something new, they either have to include it in their product, or they will be non-competitive.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. So what we have got is the electronics industry knows that if there are new ideas that improve things, they will have to include it in their product in order to remain competitive. They just don't want to buy those new ideas. They don't want to pay for it. They want to be able to steal those ideas and minimize the consequences of that theft. That's the ultimate purpose for what is going on here. The electronics industry is different than these other industries. And as you can see by the wide scope and breadth of the opposition to this bill, the other industries know that this will be dramatically harmful to them. But it will permit the electronic industry billionaires to increase their profit. And, by the way, what does the electronics industry do now? They are the ones who, of course, go to China and build their factories in China and increase the technology capabilities of that country, which is, of course, run by a regime that is the world's worst human rights abuser. These are electronics companies, some of which have gone to the dictatorship in China and helped them sort of restructure their computer systems so they can track down religious dissidents who are trying to use the Internet. This is the type of people who are behind this bill. This power grab of the electronics industry would send even more technology to China and India. It would permit the people in Korea and Japan and others to be able to basically beat our inventors into the ground. And it has been our creative genius that has protected our country against these types of regimes in the past. In fact, as Americans, we don't match people man for man. We don't match our competition with muscle power and sweat. We can beat the competition in this modern world by making sure our people have a technological edge over their competitors. The working people in those other countries may work for a pittance, but American workers should have the competitive edge. People in the electronic industry who are behind this bill don't care one iota about those American workers or America's long-term competitiveness because they consider themselves multinational corporations. Well, I am here to say that the coalition of Democrats and Republicans on the floor of the House opposing this bill do not consider ourselves multinationalists or globalists. We consider ourselves patriotic Americans, and we have got to watch out for the interests of the American people.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I certainly will.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would ask the gentleman, isn't it very clear when you're looking at that change, and there are about, as I was going through, six or seven changes, what was the purpose? What was in the mind of those people who wrote this into law and pushed for this change to be made?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow is a critical day for America. Tomorrow, the House will consider legislation that will dramatically diminish a constitutionally protected right that has served this Nation well. We are talking about fundamentally altering the laws governing the ownership of technology in our country. America's patent system is on the line. In short, if H.R. 1908, the bill in question, passes, there will be a tremendous negative, long-term consequence not just for America's inventors but for our country as a whole. It is American technology that has made all the difference in our country's security and our people's way of life. Those patriots who laid the foundation for our country wrote into the Constitution a provision they firmly believed as a prerequisite to progress and freedom. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution states in part that, quote, Congress shall have the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries, end of quote. Our Founding Fathers obviously held the right of owning one's ideas, creations and inventions as equal to the rights of speech, religion and assembly. In fact, in the body of the Constitution, the word ``right'' is only used in reference to patents and copyrights. The Bill of Rights was added later. In short, we have had since our country's founding the strongest patent protection in the world, and that is why in the history of mankind there has never been a more innovative and creative people. It has been no accident that Americans have been the world's great inventors, scientists, and technologists. Black Americans, in particular, have excelled in the creation of new technologies. This was no accident. It was a result of the protections that we put into our law to secure for all people the right of ownership for their inventions and their creations. Americans were the inventors of technology that produced more wealth, with less labor, and thus elevated the standard of living of all people which, in turn, opened the doors of opportunity for all people. Let us understand that it was not raw muscle, nor was it the hard work of our people that built this country. There are people who work hard all over the world. They work hard and they use their muscles and they struggle; yet, they live in abject poverty. So it's not just the use of one's physical strength that will change the world and make it a better place. It was not our vast territory and our natural resources that gave us a standard of living of which we are so proud. No, it was not these things. It was our ingenuity, our intelligence and, yes, the legal system that was established to protect ingenuity and creativity that brought us the joys of freedom and the benefits of freedom. We treated intellectual property rights, the creation of new technologies, as we treated property, personal and other political rights, and that is what America has been all about. Every person's rights were to be respected and protected; and as I have just demonstrated, the idea of the right to own one's creation was fundamental to this concept of the American Dream that was laid in the constitutional foundation of our country by our Founding Fathers. Today, we face a great historic challenge, and this challenge comes exactly at the time when our country faces economic threats from abroad as never before. We must prevail over our economic competitors who are at war with the well-being of the American people. We must win or our country and our people will lose. If we lose this battle, our people will suffer. It is as simple as that. Future generations could well see their standard of living decline, and there is evidence of that already. We can see their standard of living decline, and they may well see the safety and the strength of our country compromised, to which the security of their families will be in jeopardy, which all leads us to the legislation that we will consider tomorrow. Let's be clear and specific. The legislation in question, H.R. 1908, will dramatically weaken the patent rights of ordinary Americans and make us even more vulnerable to outright theft of American-created technology and innovative ideas. This legislation represents a slow- motion destruction of our patent system. And, yes, there are some real problems that need to be solved with our patent system. We need patent legislation that speeds up the examination process and the issuance process and makes it more accurate. We need patent legislation that provides training and compensation for our patent examiners. Patent examiners are overworked; they're undertrained. They need to have higher pay to make sure we keep the good patent examiners on the job. We need patent legislation that helps us protect our inventors against theft, especially from foreign theft. We need legislation aimed at fixing these problems, and it would be justified and it would be welcome, but the legislation on the floor tomorrow does not fix the system. It simply weakens the protection of American inventors using these festering problems as a cover. Some people might even suggest that the reason that these problems with our patent system have been permitted to fester was so that people could use them as an excuse to undermine the very basis of the patent system itself. Unfortunately, what we are witnessing is a replay of the strategy used in the illegal immigration debate of just a few months ago. The American people have been crying out for protection against a huge invasion of illegal immigrants into our country, one that is affecting their standard of living, their safety as a people, and their economic well-being. Special interests who benefited by this flood of illegals tried to push through a bill that would have made the situation worse. That's right, a bill in the name of stopping the illegal immigration flood that would have actually made it worse. To confuse the public, they kept calling it a comprehensive bill, as if it was designed to fix the problem. Instead, the purpose of that comprehensive bill, as we all are aware, was to give amnesty to all those who are in our country illegally, and that of course, would have attracted tens of millions of more illegals. It would have made a bad situation worse, and its only intent was amnesty. Yet, with a straight face, they kept using the phrase comprehensive reform, implying there was a fix. Well, that same strategy seems to be used by those behind this effort to undermine or destroy America's patent system as it has worked since the founding of our country over 200 years ago. Instead of arguing their case that we need to move away from the patent protection-type situation, they are simply calling their legislation a comprehensive bill. Instead of attacking the small inventor, instead of saying we're going to have a bill that actually restricts the rights of our citizens in this area because we believe that the small inventors are abusing the system, instead, they're calling it a comprehensive bill to make it sound like they are fixing some problems within the system. This bill, let's remember, H.R. 1908, is not new. This is very similar to legislation that we barely beat back 10 years ago. I called that the Steal American Technologies Act; and guess what, we beat them but they're back. So this could be called, and it would be accurate to call H.R. 1908, the Steal American Technology Act Part 2. By the way, those of us who mobilized opposition to the 1997 patent legislation negotiated a compromise that passed in 1999 and then became law in the year 2000. This legislation on the floor tomorrow represents a negation of all the compromises that we worked out in 1999. So those of us, Mr. Manzullo who will be with us in a moment, Marcy Kaptur and myself and others who insisted on certain things for that patent bill in 1999 and were given compromises in that legislation, we now face a bill that negates all of those compromises. I don't know if that's meaningful to those people who are examining this process, but it suggests the level of the attack on our patent system that we are experiencing. Even at this late moment, we are not certain what will be exactly in that bill because, at this moment, as we speak, there are changes being made in that bill that we are being told about, and we don't know exactly what those changes will be until tomorrow when it hits the floor because deals are being made as we speak. So first and foremost, no matter what the details, because we probably won't have a chance to look at all the details, let it be noted that H.R. 1908, which will be on the floor tomorrow, was specifically designed to weaken the patent protection of the American inventor. This was the purpose of the bill. We supported and will support any real reforms of the patent system, but those proposed in H.R. 1908 will cause the collapse of the patent system that has sustained America's wealth, our prosperity and, yes, our national security for over 200 years. The negative impact of the totality of this bill is reflected in the wide spectrum who are in opposition who have mobilized against it. For the record, I would submit, Mr. Speaker, the list of those companies and those organizations and those individuals, prominent individuals and companies and universities who are now fervently opposed to H.R. 1908 and begging us not to pass this legislation, and I would place it in the Record at this point. Organizations and Companies Which Have Raised Objections to Patent Legislation (H.R. 1908) Organizations and Companies Raising Objections to H.R. 1908, the Patent Reform Act of 2007: 3M, Abbott, Accelerated Technologies, Inc., Acorn Cardiovascular Inc., Adams Capital Management, Adroit Medical Systems, Inc., AdvaMed, Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc., Advanced Medical Optics, Inc., Advanced Neuromodulation Systems, Inc., Aero-Marine Company, AFL-CIO, African American Republican Leadership Council. Air Liquide, Air Products, ALD NanoSolutions, Inc., ALIO Industries, Allergan, Inc., Almyra, Inc., AmberWave Systems Corporation, American Conservative Union, American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), American Seed Trade, Americans for Sovereignty. Americans for the Preservation of Liberty, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, AngioDynamics, Inc., Applied Medical, Applied Nanotech, Inc., Argentis Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Arizona BioIndustry Association, ARYx Therapeutics, Ascenta Therapeutics, Inc., Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). Asthmatx, Inc., AstraZeneca, Aware, Inc., Baxa Corporation, Baxter Healthcare Corporation, BayBio, Beckman Coulter, BIO-- Biotechnology Industry Organization, BioCardia, Inc., BIOCOM, Biogen Idec, Biomedical Association, BioOhio, Bioscience Institute, Biotechnology Council of New Jersey. Blacks for Economic Security Trust Fund, BlazeTech Corporation, Boston Scientific, Bridgestone Americas Holding, Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb, BuzzLogic, California Healthcare Institute, California Healthcare Institute (The), Canopy Ventures, Carbide Derivative Technologies, Cardiac Concepts, Inc., CardioDynamics, Cargill, Inc., Cassie-Shipherd Group, Caterpillar, Celgene Corporation, Cell Genesys, Inc., Center 7, Inc., Center for Small Business and the Environment, Centre for Security Policy, Cephalon, CheckFree, Christian Coalition of America. Cincinnati Sub-Zero Products, Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, Coalitions for America, CogniTek Management Systems, Inc., Colorado Bioscience Association, Conceptus, Inc., CONNECT, Connecticut United for Research Excellence, Cornell University, Corning, Coronis Medical Ventures, Council for America, CropLife America, Cryptography Research, Cummins Inc., Cummins-Allison Corporation. CVRx Inc., Dais Analytic Corporation, Dartmouth Regional Technology Center, Inc., Declaration Alliance, Deltanoid Pharmaceuticals, Digimarc Corporation, DirectPointe, Dow Chemical Company, Dupont, Dura-Line Corporation, Dynatronics Co., Eagle Forum, Eastman Chemical Company, Economic Development Center, Edwards Lifesciences, Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Electronics for Imaging, Eli Lilly and Company, Ellman Innovations LLC, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Evalve, Inc. Exxon Mobile Corporation, Fallbrook Technologies Inc., FarSounder, Inc. Footnote.com. Gambro BCT, General Electric, Genomic Health, Inc., Gen- Probe Incorporated, Genzyme, Georgia Biomedical Partnership, Glacier Cross, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Glenview State Bank, Hawaii Science & Technology Council, HealthCare Institute of New Jersey, HeartWare, Inc., Helius, Inc., Henkel Corporation, Hoffman-LaRoche, Inc. iBIO, Imago Scientific Instruments, Impulse Dynamics (USA), Inc., Indiana Health Industry Forum, Indiana University, Innovation Alliance, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)-USA, InterDigital Communications Corporation, Intermolecular, Inc., International Association of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), Invitrogen Corporation, Iowa Biotechnology Association, ISTA Pharmaceuticals, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Johnson & Johnson, KansasBio, Leadership Institute, Let Freedom Ring, Life Science Alley, LITMUS, LLC. LSI Corporation, Lux Capital Management, Luxul Corporation, Maryland Taxpayers' Association. Masimo Corporation, Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council (MassMEDIC), Maxygen Inc., MDMA--Medical Device Manufacturer's Association, Medical College of Wisconsin, MedImmune, Inc., Medtronic, Merck, Metabasis Therapeutics, Inc., Metabolex, Inc., Metacure (USA), Inc., MGI Pharma Inc., MichBio, Michigan Small Tech Association, Michigan State University, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Milliken & Company, Mohr, Davidow Ventures, Monsanto Company. NAM--National Association of Manufacturers, NanoBioMagnetics, Inc. (NBMI), NanoBusiness Alliance, NanoInk, Inc., NanoIntegris, Inc., Nanomix, Inc., Nanophase Technologies, NanoProducts Corporation, Nanosys, Inc., Nantero, Inc., National Center for Public Policy Research, Nektar Therapeutics, Neoconix, Inc., Neuro Resource Group (NRG), Neuronetics, Inc., NeuroPace, New England Innovation Alliance, New Hampshire Biotechnology Council, New Hampshire Department of Economic Development, New Mexico Biotechnical and Biomedical Association, New York Biotechnology Association. Norseman Group, North Carolina Biosciences Organization, North Carolina State University, North Dakota State University, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Northwestern University, Novartis, Novartis Corporation, Novasys Medical Inc., NovoNordisk, NUCRYST Pharmaceuticals, Inc. NuVasive, Inc., Nuvelo, Inc., Ohio State University, OpenCEL, LLC. Palmetto Biotechnology Alliance, Patent Cafe.com, Inc., Patent Office Professional Association, Pennsylvania Bio, Pennsylvania State University, PepsiCo, Inc., Pfizer, PhRMA-- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Physical Sciences Inc., PointeCast Corporation, Power Innovations International, PowerMetal Technologies, Inc., Preformed Line Products, Procter & Gamble, Professional Inventors' Alliance, ProRhythm, Inc., Purdue University, Pure Plushy Inc., QUALCOMM Inc. QuantumSphere, Inc., QuesTek Innovations LLC, Radiant Medical, Inc., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Research Triangle Park, NC, Retractable Technologies, Inc., RightMarch.com, S & C Electric Company, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., SanDisk Corporation, Sangamo Biosciences, Inc., Semprius, Inc., Small Business Association of Michigan--Economic Development Center, Small Business Exporters Association of the United States. Small Business Technology Council, Smart Bomb Interactive, Smile Reminder, SmoothShapes, Inc., Solera Networks, South Dakota Biotech Association, Southern California Biomedical Council, Spiration, Inc., Standup Bed Company, State of New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development, Stella Group, Ltd., StemCells, SurgiQuest, Inc. Symyx Technologies, Inc., Tech Council of Maryland/MdBio, Technology Patents & Licensing, Tennessee Biotechnology Association, Tessera, Inc., Texas A&M, Texas Healthcare, Texas Instruments, Three Arch Partners. United Technologies, University of California System, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of New Hampshire, University of North Carolina System, University of Rochester, University of Utah, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US Business and Industry Council, US Council for International Business. USGI Medical, USW--United Steelworkers, Vanderbilt University and Medical Center, Virent Energy Systems, Inc., Virginia Biotechnology Association, Visidyne, Inc., VisionCare Opthamalogic Technologies, Inc., Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association, Washington University, WaveRx, Inc. Wayne State University, Wescor, Inc., Weyerhaeuser, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), Wisconsin Biotechnology and Medical Device Association, Wyeth. I would submit for the Record a letter dated September 5, 2007, from the Communication Workers of America, who are coming out against and are very, very specific in their opposition to H.R. 1908, and there is a rumor going around right now that the unions have now decided not to be opposed to H.R. 1908, but, instead, are neutral on the issue of H.R. 1908. Communications Workers of America, Washington, DC, September 5, 2007. Hon. Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Hon. Arlen Specter, Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee, Hon. John Conyers, Chairman, Hon. Lamar Smith, Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Leahy, Ranking Member Specter, Chairman Conyers, and Ranking Member Smith: We are writing you to express our concerns regarding the current U.S. patent system and the potential negative impact of H.R. 1908 and S. 1145 on this system. The American economy relies on the ingenuity and imagination of inventors who help drive our economy and job creation. Without a fair patent system that rewards inventors, both job creation and ingenuity will suffer. Our union members work in the technology and manufacturing sectors, both of which will be affected by these pieces of legislation. We want to see a system that solidifies our leadership in innovation and helps the American economy produce the jobs and products of the future. The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) have suggested a set of improvements for the patent system. However, the Patent Reform Act of 2007, while offering some needed changes, does not reflect the body of improvements suggested by NAS. We are concerned that two sections of the proposed legislation, the post-patent review process and apportionment of damages, will have a negative impact on innovation and research. The courts already follow a multipoint system for the appropriate consideration for damages. This should remain intact rather than constricted so as to limit damage settlements. The post-patent review process adds a third step to the two existing review processes available. This third one opens the process to serial patent challenges. For some, this can become a business strategy of continual reviews designed to elicit settlement. For the firms facing challenges, they can decide it is easier to outsource their products to a vendor rather than deal with the legal process. In a system that is already overwhelmed meeting the review needs of current patent filings, this is an unnecessary step. At a time when the rampant piracy of intellectual property by our global competitors is being continuously challenged, Congress should not give these competitors yet another advantage over American workers. We hope to work with you in your effort to improve the current patent system without disadvantaging American workers and stifling American innovation. We appreciate your leadership on this issue and we look forward to hearing your thoughts. Sincerely, Jeff Rechenbach, Executive Vice President. Let me note that only one union has changed its position and become neutral on 1908, but, instead, all the other unions, the wide swath of unions in this country, are just heavily opposed to H.R. 1908. So why are all these people, unions, universities, the biotech industry, pharmaceuticals, and, of course, especially small business, why are these people so opposed to this bill, H.R. 1908, which I call the Steal America's Technology Act No. 2. Number one, let's look at some of the requirements of the bill. What will it do? Number one, it will require that all patent applications be published 18 months after the application is filed. By the way, we negotiated this. We are joined right now by Mr. Manzullo, who is beside us. Mr. Manzullo and I fought hard in 1999 to ensure that the average right of the American inventor, to keep confidential his patent applications until that patent was issued, would be maintained. In that legislation, they said, if an American inventor does not want to have his patent published for the whole world to see, his patent application, even before the patent is issued, he can opt out of a requirement that would require him to have his patent application disclosed. This opting-out feature was a compromise. Now, those who negotiated with us, and long hard negotiations, have negated their compromise. That's the type of integrity that we are up against here, negating someone after you have actually made honest compromises? How can we trust what's in this bill if that is the basis of the organization of the structure of the bill? H.R. 1908 removes the opt-out provision that was put into the law by our negotiations back in 1999. Now, let's note that last year 20,000 inventors, three-quarters of all the small businesses who applied for patents, chose to keep their inventions secret and to opt out of the provision that once you apply for a patent, that after 18 months, whether or not you have the patent, it will be put on the Internet for every thief in the world to see. No wonder why these 20,000 inventors decided to opt out of that. The thieves and infringers overseas are licking their chops, waiting to pounce on their new ability to get the details about American technology. Just look at this quote that Mr. Manzullo showed me from the Economic Times of India, dated July 23, 2007. ``A crucial bill making its way through the U.S. Congress is set to give a new inexpensive option for Indian drug makers to attack the patents that give monopoly rights to the top-selling MNC [multinational corporations] brands in the largest pharmaceutical market.'' What that means is the Indian people who are involved with stealing our technology and copying it, especially those technologies in the pharmaceutical area, are getting ready for the changes that will be brought about by this legislation so that by the time our pharmaceutical companies are ready to go on the market with their goods, the Indian copiers will have already stolen the product of all of their research and development and turned it in to the market in India and elsewhere. This is horrendous. This is right up front, they are telling us. We are getting ready to steal hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, worth of information that was based on the research, the investment that we made in research in the United States of America, to benefit their companies. Well, it has been estimated that the U.S. economy loses $250 billion a year at this time from global intellectual property theft. If this bill passes, that number will triple or quadruple as a result of the passage of this legislation. Number 2, this bill opens up new avenues of attack before and after a patent has been issued. New attacks are now available in the pre-grant to the opposition, to someone who would like to try to make it more difficult for an inventor to get his patent in the first place and to hold up the issuance of his patent. Section 9, part B of H.R. 1908 says any person may submit for consideration an inclusion in the record of a patent application any patent, published patent application or other publication of potential relevance to the examination of the application. This means we are opening up the process so people can argue against the issuance of the patent, where before that was kept very confidential, and confidential for a purpose. Because if you have people arguing at that level, what happens is the patent is delayed. What do they want to do if it's delayed? They want to publish it for the whole world to see. Pre-grant opposition allows for outside folks like China or other countries who may have people they have hired here, people, I might add even domestic corporate scavengers, to look at applications and then dig up damaging concepts and, perhaps, ideas that would cloud the issues at hand and submit it to the patent examiners in order to defeat or to delay an application. Not only the examiner, but the whole world will be looking at these applications if those who wrote H.R. 1908 have their way. So China can steal our technology and defeat our patent applicants even before they get their patents. Another thing this bill does, of course, is afterwards it gives a post-grant review, a new system to post-grant review, to challengers to prove that the patent is not valid, and it changes the standards of validity and how that validity is to be determined. The standard is being changed from a preponderance of evidence, and this will be replaced, and that a preponderance of evidence will replace the current clear and convincing evidence, which is the current standard. Now, why are they changing these standards? They are not changing the standards to make it more difficult for people to challenge someone who owns a piece of technology, to make it easier for our inventors to defend themselves. It makes it more difficult for our defenders, for our inventors to defend themselves. Why are they changing that criteria? It's not aimed at helping the inventors, the innovators. It's aimed at helping the scavengers. Number 3, and in one moment I am going to ask Mr. Manzullo to join me, H.R. 1908 constricts the options available to rightful patent owners. So there are restrictions on what the actual patent owners, the people who have been issued the patents can do, especially in the area of which courts will be deciding their issues; limits on, as I say, limits on court venue, where either party resides, and where the Defendant has committed an alleged act of infringement, has established this, of course, will place incredible new challenges for our inventors. These are, again, aimed at trying to put restrictions on the inventors and give leverage to those who would steal that technology. It requires the court to break down the value of individual components of a product and calculate the damages based on the value. That's not the way right now it works. If someone infringes on someone's patent, that person who owns that property who has been wronged can sue that company. But it's not just based on how much that one component is worth. It is how much that person who owns that technology would have charged that company if it had been an honest contract and an honest negotiation. Again, what we are doing is restricting and making it more difficult for the inventor to protect his interest. In the end, this change alone will mean that the large corporations will be able to steal from the little guy and the foreign corporations will be able to steal from the other guy and just say, well, come at me. It's going to cost you more money to actually attack us in court and to fight us in court than you will be able to get out of it if you attack us in court. That change alone is going to undermine the rights of the inventors to control their inventions and creativity. That's the purpose of the bill. Patents would be awarded, again, and this is one of the more dramatic changes. In our country's history, we have always had a system that patents were awarded not to those who would have been the first to file for a patent, but, instead, to those who actually invented and could prove that they had invented a piece of technology. That has worked well for our country, and it is different in other countries. Japan and Europe have had different systems. This system is aimed at helping the big business rather than the small inventor, because big business can issue, can apply and pay for patent after patent application after patent application. Make one little step forward, and then you apply for a patent based on that step forward, rather than on a completed invention or a completed project. That change is fundamental to our system. We have always been recognizing the person who has invented the technology, not the company who can pay the lawyer to arrive at the patent office first. Well, number seven, and, finally, this bill creates a new proceeding to determine the inventor with the right to file an application on a claimed invention. The patent trial and appeal board would be established in this case, which, again, would so complicate this system. This is a whole new addition that will so complicate this process. It is not aimed at simplifying and making our system more effective. It's aimed at undermining the validity of this system. This change would flood the patent system, making it more expensive to get a patent. In short, every promise in H.R. 1908 is anti-inventor. Every single one of the provisions of 1908 that have been added are aimed there to undercut the inventor. Every provision weakens the rights of the inventor and undermines his ability to protect his or her rights as the inventor. This bill will only double or triple the losses that we have in terms of intellectual property theft overseas. Our own technology will be taken away from us, will be stolen, and it will be used to destroy us, as foreigners will have all the information they need about our advances, about our research, and then they will put that information to work to destroy us, to out-compete us, to put us out of business. H.R. 1908 would open up the doors for attack both before and after a patent is issued. So before a patent is issued, the inventory will have to go through more hoops, and after the patent is issued, the inventor will go through more hoops. What we have got here is a piece of legislation that will go against the whole purpose that our law was established and the Founding Fathers put into the Constitution so many years ago, that inventors and writers and other creators, that their rights will be protected. I now would like to ask Mr. Manzullo if he would like to join me and share with us a few of his thoughts. Let me note that in 1997, Mr. Manzullo and Marcy Kaptur and myself and John Campbell of California, there were just a few of us, fought a battle. We were up against the most powerful forces in the world, these multinational corporations who were trying to sneak this through, and we were able to defeat them with the mobilization of the public behind us. This time, at least, we do have the major universities with us. This time we have the biotech industry and the pharmaceutical industry and the labor unions behind us. But we need to make sure that the American people understand what's going on here tomorrow and the vote and the significance of that vote tomorrow. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It is easy to understand why it is going on, because the bill that is coming forward on Friday, H.R. 1908, that bill is designed not to help American competitiveness. That bill is not designed to protect the property rights of inventors. That bill is totally designed for the purpose of weakening the system for the American inventor and protecting the ability of the big guys, the guys who are shipping the jobs to China already, that is how much they care about us, to protect their ability to use technology and to steal it without having to pay for it. That is the purpose. It weakens it. The whole bill is designed to weaken the patent system. As I have used the example of the immigration bill before, where people didn't want to talk about amnesty, everybody knows that was the real purpose. They used the word ``comprehensive'' to cover up that and not to debate amnesty. This bill, the ``comprehensive reform bill,'' is designed to weaken the system, but they are using ``reform'' as a word to make it sound like they are trying to improve things. Let us note the reason. If you ask these big companies and the people proposing this why we have to do it, they are not going to tell you we are doing it for the big guys. We are doing it because the financial industry and the electronics industry, they don't want to pay royalties, and they do their manufacturing overseas, so they don't care about the American worker anyway. They are not going to say that. What they are going to say is we need to harmonize all of our laws dealing with economics. We need to get up with the rest of the world. It is called harmonization. We heard that 10 years ago. We have to harmonize our law with the rest of the world. We have had the strongest protection for patent rights of any country in the world since our country's founding, and it has served us well. Now they want to harmonize it with the rest of the world by lowering our standards, by lowering our protection. If we did that with other freedoms, the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, there would be a revolution in our country, because if we want to push for all countries to have one standard, well, they should be increasing their standards to meet our level of protection of rights, not having us lower the protection that we have for our individual citizens.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. There are 102 cases over a year, which is basically what one judge sees. There is no litigation crisis. But again, as you are aware, what we have here is they are trying to use that as cover to try to do something else, because the bill is not aimed at correcting that. The bill is aimed at permitting these large companies to take, at will, from America's inventors.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, let me just note for my colleague who just finished his very, very appropriate remarks concerning the passing of Jennifer Dunn, I have three children at home, little Tristen and Anika and Christian; and as a parent, I am very grateful to Jennifer Dunn for the leadership that she provided in helping make our country safer for our children, the children that we all love so much. And when we talk about the future and I think about my children, we have to think that whatever we do here, we are creating a better world, and it is a better world for our children because they are going to be around a lot longer than we are. Well, Mr. Speaker, on Friday the House will consider legislation that will have a huge impact on the well-being of the American people and, yes, the well-being of America's children as they get older. Yet this bill will have a great deal to do with whether or not our children have good jobs and live in a secure country. This bill is receiving very little attention. Very powerful interest groups are trying to sneak this one by us, and if they succeed, they will be enriched and the American people will be worse off. So what's new? Well, what's new is that this special interest foray is not aimed at just adding an earmark or changing a clause in the tax law to help a specific company. It is a maneuver to dramatically diminish a constitutionally protected right that has served our Nation well. It is a fundamental change in a system that has been in place since our country's founding. That is a lot different than the special interest forays in the past just aimed at changing little elements of the law for their own benefit. We are talking about fundamentally altering America's patent system. Now, if H.R. 1908, the bill in question, passes, there will be tremendous negative long-term consequences not just for America's inventors but for the country. Now, patent law is thought to be so complicated and so esoteric that most people tune out once they realize that that is the subject of a discussion. We have probably lost people right now who are reading the Congressional Record or watching C-SPAN or our colleagues who are watching this from their offices. But the technology that we are talking about is vitally important to the well-being of our country. Patent law is not so complicated and esoteric because it is that vital to the well-being of our country. Our technological genius and the laws protecting and promoting that genius have been at the heart of America's success as a Nation. America's technological edge has made American workers competitive with low-priced laborers overseas. It has provided the American people with the highest standard of living in the world, and it enabled our country to sail safely through the troubled waters of world wars and international threats. It is American technology that has made all the difference for our country's security and our people's quality of life. Protecting individual rights, even for the little guy, has been the hallmark of our Nation. Patent rights, the right to one's own creation, which is what we are talking about when we talk about patent rights, have been considered a fundamental part of our system since our country's founding. In fact, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and others of our Founding Fathers were not the only people who believed in freedom and democracy. They believed in technology and progress. Visit Monticello and see what Thomas Jefferson did with his time after he penned the words to the Declaration of Independence and after he served as President of the United States. He went back to Monticello and spent his time inventing gadgets and pieces of equipment that would lift the burden from the shoulders of labor. And, by the way, Jefferson was America's first Patent Commissioner. And then there is Ben Franklin, the inventor of the bifocal and the potbellied stove. Before Benjamin Franklin people could only heat themselves at a fireplace and project heat in a room only from a fireplace. And Benjamin Franklin invented the potbellied stove, which started the whole concept of modern heating. This grand old man, who was present at the Declaration of Independence and the writing of our Constitution, once lamented his own death not by talking about the fear of the unknown and dying but by lamenting that he would not be able to see the great human progress that was bound to happen, the technological advances that would be the byproduct of a free people in the United States of America. Our Founding Fathers believed that with freedom and with technology, we could increase the standard of living of all our people, not just the elite. Our founders were visionaries, not just about political structures but about a way of life for ordinary people and the future of humankind. Those patriots who laid the foundation of our country wrote into the Constitution a provision they firmly believed was a prerequisite to progress and freedom. Now, last night after I gave a similar speech on the floor, a teacher, a so-called teacher of history, called my office to complain, ``There is nothing about copyrights or patents in our Constitution.'' I don't know how long he has been a teacher. He said he has been teaching 20 years. But my staff member took out a copy of the Constitution and read to him article I, section 8 of the Constitution, which states in part: ``Congress shall have the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.'' They held the right of owning one's ideas and creations and inventions as equal to the rights of speech, religion, and assembly. In fact, in the body of the Constitution before the Bill of Rights, the word ``right'' is only used in reference to patents and copyrights. So that shows you the priority that our Founding Fathers placed on the technological development that would create the dream of America that they felt that they were establishing here on this continent. In short, we have had the strongest patent protection in the world, and that is why in the history of mankind there has never been a more innovative and creative people. And it has been no accident that Americans are the world's great inventors, scientists, and technologists. No, it is not just the diversity of our people, but diversity certainly plays a role and we can be proud of that and it has contributed to our capabilities. It wasn't just our natural resources, although we were blessed with vast territory and natural resources. Our innovation and progress can be traced to our law from the very beginning. It was the intent of those who wrote these protections into our fundamental law, into the Constitution in those earliest days of our Republic, and it was their vision of optimism that motivated them to write this into the law. Our history is filled with stories of technological achievement that flowed from the fact that we had established a country that thought that the rights of ownership of what you create is just as important as your right to speak or the right to worship God as you so choose. We found people who emerged among us, Eli Whitney, for example, who not only invented the cotton gin but who invented the interchangeable parts for manufacturing. This revolutionized industrial production and dramatically uplifted the well-being of millions of people and, yes, people who were yet to be born. Cyrus McCormick invented the reaper. Before that the food supply for our people was limited. People went to bed hungry, large numbers. Cyrus McCormick invented a reaper that made sure that every person would have bread enough to eat, that children would be fed. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph, which eventually led, of course, to the telephone and revolutionized a whole idea of communications throughout the world. Thomas Edison, the light bulb and so many other inventions. Interestingly, black Americans were prolific inventors even at times when they were terribly discriminated against because patent law was one law that was justly applied to them for the most part, although there were issues of discrimination even in that area. But compared to the other areas where they were totally discriminated against, there was some leeway in our society. And black inventors emerged, as is predictable, because that was their avenue to rise up. Men like Jan Matzeliger, who invented a machine that was used in shoe manufacturing that dramatically changed the shoe industry to the point that the average person after Matzeliger's invention could afford to have more than one pair of shoes in his life. Before that they were so expensive, people had one pair of shoes that they repaired for the rest of their lives. George Washington Carver, another great black inventor, a great scholar, a world-respected scientist, and so many more like him. We are proud that our history advanced technologies because we know, as Americans, as we have always known, that through our country's history, that the inventions that we're talking about produced more wealth with less labor, thus increased the standard of living of all people and the opportunity for all people who are part of our country's brotherhood and sisterhood to share in the benefits, in the fruits of this free society. And yes, we have had problems in the past and there was discrimination against black Americans, obviously. Slavery was a blight on our system, a sin. But as we have tried to produce more wealth, and the more wealth that has been produced and the more opportunity that's been available, the easier it's been for our society to try to correct those terrible crimes and sins of the past. And black Americans have done their share, more than their share, in producing these inventions that have helped our country. By and large, the inventors were not part of large corporate structures. They were, by and large, little guys, people who didn't have vast companies behind them, which leads us, of course, to the Wright brothers. We remember the Wright brothers, men with little education that worked in a bicycle shop. They owned a bicycle shop and ended up inventing something a little more than 100 years ago that they were told was impossible to invent, impossible to build by the experts. They had no huge corporate structures behind them, so thus they didn't have a board of directors that prohibited them from their research or directed them in a way that would have prevented them from being successful. They went forward, they invested their time, and they invested their limited resources. And they changed the future of humankind forever as they took mankind's feet off the ground and put us on the road to the heavens. The patent issued to the Wright brothers is perhaps one of the most significant documents in the history of all mankind. Let us understand that it was not raw muscle nor was it just hard work that built our country. People work hard all over the world and live in abject poverty. It is not our vast territory or natural resources. It was, instead, our ingenuity, our intelligence, and yes, the legal system that was established to protect that ingenuity and the intelligence and the creativity of our people. We treated intellectual property, the creation of new technologies, as we treated property and personal rights and political rights. They were held in the same esteem in the United States of America. And that is what America is all about, that every person's rights were to be respected and protected. As I say, we didn't always live up to that dream, but it was our standard. We held those high standards and it served us well. Now we have people trying to undermine those standards for personal gain. Today we face a great historic challenge, and this challenge comes exactly at a time when our country faces economic threats from abroad as never before. We must prevail over our economic competitors. They are at war with the well-being of the American people. We must win, or our country and our people will lose. My children, Anika, Tristen and Christian, they will lose. Your children, all of our children will have worse lives in the future if we lose this battle, this economic battle that we are fighting today. Yes, our people will suffer. Future generations could well see their standard of living decline, the opportunity of their young people vanish, as well as the safety and strength of our country, which all leads us to the legislation that will be considered on Friday. Very powerful corporate interests, mainly billionaires in the electronics industry and the financial industry, are on the verge of fundamentally changing the U.S. patent system, and it will have dire consequences for the American people. So our colleagues need to pay attention. Let us be clear and specific; the legislation in question, H.R. 1908, will dramatically weaken the patent rights of ordinary Americans and make us even more vulnerable to the outright theft of American-made technology and innovative ideas. The purpose of the legislation is to weaken the patent system. Those people in the electronics industry and the financial industry do not want to pay royalties; they do not want to be hampered by watching out for and respecting the ownership rights of our inventors anymore. This legislation is a slow-motion destruction of the patent system. No one will be candid enough to admit it, but the real reason for this and past forays against the patent system is aimed at the destruction of the system; it is not to make it better. No one is going to admit it. They're going to say they're here trying to reform the system. It is not aimed at that; it is aimed at destroying the system. The word ``reform'' is being used as a cover just as it was a cover in the immigration battle. We all remember that. People talked about comprehensive immigration because the real purpose, as we all know, was amnesty in that bill that was making its way through Congress. Everybody knows that. And amnesty would have brought tens of millions more here, at least that was debatable. Well, we should have talked about it and debated that issue. Instead, we heard about comprehensive reform as if it was going to solve a problem and make the immigration influx into our country, bring it under control. No. The purpose of that bill was amnesty. When they talk about reform of our patent system, what they're really talking about is destroying the patent system and weakening its protection. They couldn't pass it otherwise. There are some real problems that need to be solved with our patent system. Unfortunately, the legislation making its way through the system does not correct the problems, just as the comprehensive amnesty bill or comprehensive immigration bill didn't solve the problems. The problems are being used as an excuse to act. But the proposed changes are aimed at a totally different and indefensible goal. It is a power grab, a classic power grab where we are not having an honest debate, an honest exchange of ideas with the American people. So we readily admit, those of us who are in opposition to the bill that will come to the floor Friday, H.R. 1908, we admit that we need patent legislation, legislation that speeds the examination and issuance of patents, helps the process, the examination process and the issuance process, provides training and compensation for patent examiners. We need legislation that does just that. We need legislation that will protect our inventors against theft, especially against foreign theft, where our own creative genius of our people is being taken and stolen by foreigners and then put into their manufacturing to outdo the United States, to put us out of business; our own creative genius used against us. Yes, we need to fix these problems with the patent. The bill has this goal, and supposedly they talk about it. And if that was the goal, it would be welcomed. Well, it also has been a straw man to justify this revolutionary altering of our patent system, of course. What we need, of course, is to correct the problems in the current system, not to destroy the system. This comprehensive bill that we face, interestingly enough, is similar to a bill that came up 10 years ago that we managed, with public outcry, just like the outcry that stopped the immigration bill in the Senate. We stopped a bill like this 10 years ago. I called it the ``Steal American Technologies Act.'' Well, the same group of people, the same interest group that tried to push that is back. And so if you take a look at this bill, we might call it the ``Steal American Technologies Act Part 2.'' So just what does H.R. 1908 do? First and foremost, it is designed, as I say, to weaken the patent protection of American inventors. So we support real reforms, but the proposed changes in H.R. 1908 will cause the collapse of the patent system that has sustained America for the past 200 years. The negative impact of the totality of this bill is reflected in the wide spectrum of opposition who are now mobilizing against it. For the Record, I would submit this list of those who are opposing H.R. 1908, and I would ask this to be included in the Record at this point. Organizations and Companies Which Have Raised Objections to Patent Legislation (H.R. 1908) Organizations and Companies Raising Objections to H.R. 1908, the Patent Reform Act of 2007: 3M, Abbott, Accelerated Technologies, Inc., Acorn Cardiovascular Inc., Adams Capital Management, Adroit Medical Systems, Inc., AdvaMed, Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc., Advanced Medical Optics, Inc., Advanced Neuromodulation Systems, Inc., Aero-Marine Company, AFL-CIO, African American Republican Leadership Council, AIPLA--American Intellectual Property Law Association. Air Liquide, Air Products, ALD NanoSolutions, Inc., ALIO Industries, Allergan, Inc., Almyra, Inc., AmberWave Systems Corporation, American Conservative Union, American Intellectual property Law, Association (AIPLA), American Seed Trade, Americans for Sovereignty. Americans for the Preservation of Liberty, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, AngioDynamics, Inc., Applied Medical, Applied Nanotech, Inc., Argentis Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Arizona BioIndustry Association, ARYx Therapeutics, Ascenta Therapeutics, Inc., Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). Asthmatx, Inc., AstraZeneca, Aware, Inc., Baxa Corporation, Baxter Healthcare Corporation, BayBio, Beckman Coulter, BIO-- Biotechnology Industry Organization, BioCardia, Inc., BIOCOM, Biogen Idec, Biomedical Association, BioOhio, Bioscience Institute, Biotechnology Council of New Jersey. Blacks for Economic Security Trust Fund, BlazeTech Corporation, Boston Scientific, Bridgestone Americas Holding, Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb, BuzzLogic, California Healthcare Institute, California Healthcare Institute (The), Canopy Ventures, Carbide Derivative Technologies, Cardiac Concepts, Inc., CardioDynamics, Cargill, Inc., Cassie-Shipherd Group (The), Caterpillar, Celgene Corporation, Cell Genesys, Inc., Center 7, Inc., Center for Small Business and the Environment, Centre for Security Policy, Cephalon, CheckFree, Christian Coalition of America. Cincinnati Sub-Zero Products, Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, Coalitions for America, CogniTek Management Systems, Inc., Colorado Bioscience Association, Conceptus, Inc., CONNECT, Connecticut United for Research Excellence, Cornell University, Corning, Coronis Medical Ventures, Council for America, CropLife America, Cryptography Research, Cummins-Allison Corporation. Cummins Inc., CVRx Inc., Dais Analytic Corporation, Dartmouth Regional Technology Center, Inc., Declaration Alliance, Deltanoid Pharmaceuticals, Digimarc Corporation, DirectPointe, Dow Chemical Company, Dupont, Dura-Line Corporation, Dynatronics Co., Eagle Forum, Eastman Chemical Company, Economic Development Center, Edwards Lifesciences, Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Electronics for Imaging, Eli Lilly and Company, Ellman Innovations LLC, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Evalve, Inc. Exxon Mobile Corporation, Fallbrook Technologies Inc., FarSounder, Inc. Footnote.com. Gambro BCT, General Electric, Genomic Health, Inc., Gen- Probe Incorporated, Genzyme, Georgia Biomedical Partnership, Glacier Cross, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Glenview State Bank, Hawaii Science & Technology Council, HealthCare Institute of New Jersey, HeartWare, Inc., Helius, Inc., Henkel Corporation, Hoffman-LaRoche, Inc. iBIO, Imago Scientific Instruments, Impulse Dynamics (USA), Inc., Indiana Health Industry Forum, Indiana University, Innovation Alliance, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)-USA, InterDigital Communications Corporation, Intermolecular, Inc., International Association of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), Invitrogen Corporation, Iowa Biotechnology Association, ISTA Pharmaceuticals, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Johnson & Johnson, KansasBio, Leadership Institute, Let Freedom Ring, Life Science Alley, LITMUS, LLC. LSI Corporation, Lux Capital Management, Luxul Corporation, Maryland Taxpayers' Association. Masimo Corporation, Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council, MassMEDIC, Maxygen Inc., MDMA--Medical Device Manufacturer's Association, Medical College of Wisconsin, MedImmune, Inc., Medtronic, Merck, Metabasis Therapeutics, Inc., Metabolex, Inc., Metacure (USA), Inc., MGI Pharma Inc., MichBio, Michigan Small Tech Association, Michigan State University, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Milliken & Company, Mohr, Davidow Ventures, Monsanto Company, Motorola. NAM--National Association of Manufacturers, NanoBioMagnetics, Inc. (NBMI), NanoBusiness Alliance, NanoInk, Inc., NanoIntegris, Inc., Nanomix, Inc., Nanophase Technologies, NanoProducts Corporation, Nanosys, Inc., Nantero, Inc., National Center for Public Policy Research, Nektar Therapeutics, Neoconix, Inc., Neuro Resource Group (NRG), Neuronetics, Inc., NeuroPace, New England Innovation Alliance, New Hampshire Biotechnology Council, New Hampshire Department of Economic Development, New Mexico Biotechnical and Biomedical Association, New York Biotechnology Association. Norseman Group, North Carolina Biosciences Organization, North Carolina State University, North Dakota State University, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Northwestern University, Novartis, Novartis Corporation, Novasys Medical Inc., NovoNordisk, NUCRYST Pharmaceuticals, Inc. NuVasive, Inc., Nuvelo, Inc., Ohio State University, OpenCEL, LLC. Palmetto Biotechnology Alliance, Patent Cafe.com, Inc., Patent Office Professional Association, Pennsylvania Bio, Pennsylvania State University, PepsiCo, Inc., Pfizer, PhRMA-- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Physical Sciences Inc., PointeCast Corporation, Power Innovations International, PowerMetal Technologies, Inc., Preformed Line Products, Procter & Gamble, Professional Inventors' Alliance, ProRhythm, Inc., Purdue University, Pure Plushy Inc., QUALCOMM Inc. QuantumSphere, Inc., QuesTek Innovations LLC, Radiant Medical, Inc., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Research Triangle Park, NC, Retractable Technologies, Inc., RightMarch.com, S & C Electric Company, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., SanDisk Corporation, Sangamo Biosciences, Inc., Semprius, Inc., Small Business Association of Michigan--Economic Development Center, Small Business Exporters Association of the United States. Small Business Technology Council, Smart Bomb Interactive, Smile Reminder, SmoothShapes, Inc., Solera Networks, South Dakota Biotech Association, Southern California Biomedical Council, Spiration, Inc., St. Louis University, Standup Bed Company (The), State of New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development, Stella Group, Ltd., StemCells, SurgiQuest, Inc. Symyx Technologies, Inc., Tech Council of Maryland/MdBio, Technology Patents & Licensing, Tennessee Biotechnology Association, Tessera, Inc., Texas A&M, Texas Healthcare, Texas Instruments, Three Arch Partners. United Technologies, University of California System, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of New Hampshire, University of North Carolina System, University of Rochester, University of Utah, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US Business and Industry Council, US Council for International Business. USGI Medical, USW--United Steelworkers, Vanderbilt University and Medical Center, Virent Energy Systems, Inc., Virginia Biotechnology Association, Visidyne, Inc., VisionCare Opthamalogic Technologies, Inc., Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association, Washington University, WaveRx, Inc. Wayne State University, Wescor, Inc., Weyerhaeuser, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), Wisconsin Biotechnology and Medical Device Association, Wyeth. This list includes biotech industries, the pharmaceutical industry, small businesses, labor unions, universities, patent examiners, and of course inventors. And that's just a very small part of the list, as you will see with those people reading the Congressional Record. And why are so many of these people, why are such a large number of people opposed to it? Perhaps the easiest to understand of why people are against this bill is the issue of disclosure. In this bill, disclosure is called ``publication.'' From the time of the founding of our country until recent years it was mandated by our law that every patent application would be held confidential until the patent was issued. In fact, if a patent examiner left out some information about a patent application, they could end up in jail. It was a felony. Well, this bill is going to change all of that. We have had a system that's been dramatically different from the rest of the world in this confidentiality, and it was this element that has been a major success for us. Yet in the legislation, H.R. 1908, as well as the legislation we beat 10 years ago, that's one of the first things they're trying to do is end the confidentiality. In fact, this bill, H.R. 1908, at this point eliminates the right of confidentiality for American inventors. H.R. 1908 would mandate the publication of all patent applications 18 months after the patent is applied for, whether or not the patent has been granted. Is everybody getting that? This bill will mandate that the people of India and China and Korea and elsewhere will have all of the details of our patent applications, our most cutting-edge secrets, before the patent is issued. It will be on the Internet. Now, let's look at the numbers. 89,000 American patents were issued by the Patent Office last year; 32 percent of them went to small business or those companies who employ less than 500 employees. Twenty percent of U.S. origin patents, 20 percent of the patents chose to opt for the current provision of law that will prevent their application from being published before the patent is issued. So right now they have a right to opt for that because if people that apply for international patents, their patent is published after 18 months. But we have 20 percent of the U.S. origin patents opted not to permit their patent application to be published after 18 months. Last year, that means 20,000 inventors, about two-thirds of all small business inventors, chose to keep their patent secret and keep it away from the prying eyes of China, Japan, Korea, India and others who would steal their new innovations. And you don't have to take my word that these countries want the bill passed for sinister purposes. Just look at this quote from the Economic Times of India dated July 23, 2007. Listen to this, and I quote, ``A crucial bill making its way through the U.S. Congress is set to give new inexpensive options for the Indian drug makers to attack the patents that give monopoly rights to the top-selling multinational corporation brands in the largest pharmaceutical market.'' Did you get that? That means they're waiting so that our pharmaceutical companies can invest hundreds of millions of dollars to try to develop a new drug, and they know they're going to get it. The Indians already are saying it's an inexpensive option for the Indian drug makers because they're going to be able to take that information and get more drugs on the market there before our own people are able to get those drugs, and the hundreds of millions of dollars of research of our companies will be just stolen. That's why the pharmaceutical industry is against this bill. It is estimated that already at this time the U.S. economy loses $250 billion a year from global intellectual property theft. This bill would double or triple that loss, and in the long run, equip our economic adversaries with what they need to compete with us and to drive Americans out of business. Got that? Our own technology being used to destroy American jobs. It's our technology and our technological advancement that has let American workers compete with low-price workers overseas. Now they're going to change our laws because certain elements in our high-tech industries, meaning the electronics industry and the financial industry, do not want to pay royalties to our inventors; that we're going to provide this information to the rest of the world so they can steal it and use it against us. Doesn't sound like anybody's watching out for the interests of the American people. Well, it should be easy for everyone to understand that part of the bill. And, in fact, the authors of the bill, even though they stuck to this, they put it in the bill originally. And 10 years ago they tried to push this same thing. They now say they're going to try to amend the bill so that provision isn't as tough. Well, what about the other provisions of the bill? Even if this provision comes out, because they know it is just too easy to understand how horrible that would be for America, the other provisions are just as bad. It is just that they are harder to understand. So if the publication requirement comes out, people should understand that that, too, is part of a strategy to get the rest of the bill in which would undermine America's inventors. Those pushing H.R. 1908 want China, Japan, Korea and India and others to know every detail of developing technologies and our creative ideas, even before the patents have been issued. So we understand, this will facilitate that. That is pretty easy to see when you are talking about giving them all the information. Just as bad, however, this bill opens up new avenues of attack for those foreign and domestic business predators who would purposely infringe on the inventor's patent rights. So, what we are doing, the rest of these provisions, that is easy to understand, this publication, you know, anyone can see, that is asking everybody around the world to steal our ideas and use them against us. Well, these other ideas are just as damaging. They basically would help foreign and domestic predators against our inventors. H.R. 1908 would open up new doors of attack both before a patent is issued and after it is issued. Before, in expanded, what they call inter partes examination which, in effect, gives the infringers of a patent another opportunity to challenge every patent that they are infringing upon. Once at the Patent and Trademark Office, and if unsuccessfully, if they fail the first time, they can try again in a court after the patent has been issued. So even if they had challenged the issuance of a patent beforehand in the current process, this bill allows them then to again challenge it after the patent has been issued in court, which dramatically increases the cost for the inventor, freezing out the little guys. It allows powerful corporate third parties to sit in and state their case while someone is trying to get their patent. Yet again, this is an avenue given to the large corporate interests. And what does it do? It punishes the little guy. Then afterwards, we have a whole new postgrant review. Now that is in the beginning. They have a right to sit in on the process and to basically try to disrupt the patent process in the very beginning stages so the little guy has a tough time getting it granted. But then afterwards, there is a whole new postgrant review. This means that after the patent has been issued, we make it easier for the big guys to keep coming back and attacking the right of the person who developed this new technology. The new postgrant review lowers the bar of proving that a patent is invalid. Thus, we have actually changed the standard that has protected our inventors against aggressive and unjustified attacks by people challenging them. Currently, the patent challenger must prove a patent's invalidity, prove that a patent is invalid by clear and convincing evidence. That is a quote, ``by clear and convincing evidence.'' They are going to change that to the ``preponderance of evidence.'' How will that affect the patent system? What we have here is an attempt to change that wording and change the standard in a way that weakens the foundation that a patent holder relies upon in terms of all of the legal defenses that he has to make. We end up with a situation where investors are going to hesitate to get involved with any small inventors because we now have changed the basic rules that have protected the small inventors against unjustified attacks. In fact, Mr. Speaker, as with the immigration bill, this is not a fix. None of this is a fix. It will just make it worse. The corporate elite tells us that this will reduce lawsuits. Well, Mr. Speaker, I am confused, because the system that is now being used in Europe which is the system that they are proposing that we now put into our system, the same postgrant review system, they are trying to change our rules to make the same rules as they do in Europe. Well, Europe has three times the number of lawsuits that are filed in attempts to steal the patent rights of the inventor through lawsuits than we have in the United States. So what is this going to do? It is going to flood our system with lawsuits. Of course, lawsuits are expensive. The little guy loses. In fact, Japan dropped this element from their system because it produced too many lawsuits. They dropped it in 2004. So while we are strengthening the chance of the big guy to attack the little guy even after the patent has been granted, they found it to be a disaster in Japan. They discarded it. In Europe, it causes three times the number of lawsuits. Mr. Speaker, this is not the right path to take. It is not reform. It will make things worse. I am going to yield to my good friend, Marcy Kaptur, in one moment. But let me just note one other element here before we do. We hear about the widespread problem with patent lawsuits. This is something we hear about all the time. This is why we have to pass this legislation. Well, there are horror stories concerning some companies that have been tied up, very few, but some have been tied up and eventually having to relent to trial lawyers because of delays in the patent system. We also know about the examiners who are overworked. We know that our patent examiners are underpaid. They aren't getting the training they need and the proper education they need. Yes, we need to fix that. In reality, patent lawsuits, of course, do not stem from these problems. Lawsuits are not a major problem. In fact, between 1993 and 2005, the number of patent lawsuits versus the number of patents granted has held steady. So although we have problems in the system, that is not what is resulting in a higher number of lawsuits. In fact, in 2006, there were only 102 cases that actually went to trial. Mr. Speaker, this number is far below the average number of cases that that one District Court judge sees annually. And it is far fewer than what they have over in Europe. Of course, there is room for improvement, and I readily admit that. But this is not a crisis that demands us to dramatically change the fundamental nature of the system. Mr. Speaker, as we get into more of a discussion of this, my friend, Marcy Kaptur, who has stood beside me in this fight for the last 10 years trying to protect the little guy, realizing that unless we protect the American inventor and American technology, that American workers and the standard of living of our people are going to decline, and that countries like Japan, India and others will steal our technology and use it to put our people out of work, this is a champion of the working people of our country. And we have a Republican-Democrat coalition here, as we will see on Friday. I would now yield whatever time she may consume to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. ROHRABACHER. People need to know that H.R. 1908 will be coming to the floor on Friday. I call it the ``Steal America's Technology Act,'' and we need to defeat this bill. We need to have the support of the public and of our colleagues, and we are asking for that support today. I would like to close with one story. It is a story of a statue of a man downstairs. If someone is going through the Capitol, he needs to look at the statue. There are many statues here, but it is a statue of a man named Philo Farnsworth. He was the personification of an individual inventor. He discovered, with his creative genius, the picture tube, the secret that created the picture tube for television. RCA had spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to find that secret. Philo Farnsworth made the mistake of trusting David Sarnoff, the head of RCA, with the secret, thinking we are going to work together to develop this for all humankind. Sarnoff immediately cut off all communications with this man and tried to steal this invention, claiming credit for RCA itself. For 20 years, poor Philo Farnsworth, the personification of the little guy, was being beaten down by David Sarnoff because he didn't want to pay the royalties or give the credit to this one little guy, this one lone American. That case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court, God bless America, sided with the little guy, sided with Philo Farnsworth and reaffirmed that we are talking about rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution for all our citizens, the big guys and the little guys. This bill, H.R. 1908, is a big guys' bill designed by the big guys to steal from the little guys and in the long run it will hurt all Americans. I proudly stand by Marcy Kaptur and Mr. Manzullo and others who will be leading, helping us fight this back on Friday. We need everyone's support. We need all constituents to talk to their Congressman on this issue.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The gentlewoman is right on target. What you have to do to understand how evil that is is realize that the Chinese couldn't have built that tire company because they did not have the equipment to do it. We have a major corporation from the United States sending our technology and our equipment over there, where American workers in the past would be able to outproduce low-paid Chinese workers because we had the technology. Our corporate leaders now have sent jobs over there by giving them the technology they need to outcompete American workers. I will have to say we have a little disagreement on trade in terms of democratic countries, because I don't see anything wrong with trading with democratic countries. What we are referring to right now is something we both totally agree on, how can we have free trade with despotic regimes like China and other dictatorships around the world, where they keep their own people in abject poverty, and we are going to let our corporations take our technology over there, take even our investment there? A lot of times it is done with government-guaranteed loans from our government. So this is all part of an overall problem, not a problem, but a threat to the American people, and this is a new wrinkle. In H.R. 1908, this is just the part where they are going to take the technology that is invented here immediately over and let their companies overseas steal it and use if, and then say to the inventors, go ahead and sue us. Try to get it.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Clearly, when we are talking about harmonizing our laws with the rest of the world, this is not an excuse to dramatically bring down the rights that have been enjoyed, the protections our people have enjoyed, and which have assured America's prosperity and the security of our people. In fact, let's take a look at these huge electronics corporations and huge financial interests that are pushing H.R. 1908. These are the same companies that build their manufacturing units in China and have built up the economy of China so they can outcompete Americans. These are the same companies that have actually worked with a despotic gangster regime in Beijing so that their computers can be used to help track down political dissidents. They tell us, well, we have to improve the economy of China in order to have them evolve into a more peaceful and more Democratic country. That is baloney. What they are doing over there is getting a quick profit. They are sitting over there getting their blood money at a 25 percent profit a year, when if they would have the same projects and have the same manufacturing in the United States, perhaps they would only make a 5 or 10 percent profit. What it is, they have no loyalty to American ideals and they don't have a loyalty to the American worker. Without American working people standing up for these principles, these big companies would have nothing. We would live in a world that would be awash with tyrants, if it wasn't for the American people who defend liberty and justice throughout the world. But yet these corporations take all of them for granted, just like they take for granted these small inventors. They look at them as nerds. These big executives, who will live in gated communities and go to the country clubs, they look at these inventors as nerds. The creative types are just the creative types. We have seen it over and over again. That is the way they treat the American people as well, with arrogance and with a total lack of consideration. They go over and they invest in China, when they should be giving jobs, decent paying jobs, to the American people. But their profit margin would be a little less. By the way, that profit margin that we are talking about, this isn't a profit margin that goes just to their stockholders. We are talking about big corporate billionaires who give themselves huge corporate salaries. And what are they doing? They are putting American workers out of work and sending it over to China. This bill is their bill. H.R. 1908 will permit them to not only take the jobs to China, but to take the technology that is invented in our country to China to outcompete the workers here that are left.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. One thing we know is that today's corporations are far different than in the past. We have corporations that are basically multinational corporations. Yeah, American citizens may lead up these corporations, but they consider themselves to be the head of a huge multinational organization, and their loyalty isn't to the people of the United States, it is to, supposedly, the corporate structure which, of course, could mean that they put thousands of Americans out of work and not give it even a second thought. We cannot rely on these corporate elites to make the policy that will determine the future of our country. And that is what is happening here. The corporate elite, basically the high-tech billionaires, have come around and written H.R. 1908, and it will be a disaster for the American people if we let this go by because in the long term it will eliminate our technological edge over our competitors.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The fundamental rules that were laid down 200 years ago on the very subject, for example, not just the confidentiality, which they are trying to destroy, but the subject that you brought up is first to file, versus the concept that we had in our system for over 200 years, which is that we respect the person who is the first to invent. Inventors have told me over and over again that if we change our system, and, by the way, in Europe and Japan that is the way their systems are, and, of course, they don't protect the little guy. Their systems were designed at a time when they weren't talking about individual rights, but were trying to protect corporate interest in their country. But first to file would flood our system with patent applications day after day after day. The large corporations who can afford to make a new filing every time there is a little step forward, you would end up flooding the system, as compared to what it is today. Talk about delays in the patent system. It would have a horrible impact. In fact, some of the other things that they are suggesting also in terms of these, on June 7th, 2007, a letter to Congress from Chief Judge Paul Michael of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the U.S. Federal Circuit Court warned Congress that the learning curve for all of these changes that they are talking about, especially the first to file and the various changes in the standards, will result in additional court delays that would be severe and would add additional attorneys fees and costs. So that is what we have. In the name of trying to prevent a glut, which they say now is flooding our courts, when there are only 102 cases, they are going to create changes that will flood our courts and add dramatically to the cost for an individual inventor.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right, because they don't want the foreign interests to have all that information even before they get issued the patent.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. If I might add, the protections we have had, there are penalties that companies will pay, and you mentioned that those large corporations paid $2 billion, or I forget the exact figure you used, in terms of damages. Well, this bill would reduce the amount of damages that can be collected from a patent owner, an inventor who has been violated by an infringer. If a company steals someone's nice idea and does not pay them for it and starts using it, especially foreign companies, this bill actually reduces the amount of money that can be expected by changing the criteria of how you can assess damages. What you will end up with is it won't be worthwhile for the inventor to have to pay the lawyers and go after these infringers, and our inventors will be high and dry, the technology that they do invent will go overseas, so they will cease to invent. Who is going to be worse off? Everybody is going to be worse off.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, tonight I would like to raise a red flag to draw attention, the attention of my fellow Members, who are here assembled, as well as those listening on C-SPAN and those who will be reading this in the Congressional Record. On Friday, legislation is scheduled to come to the floor of the House that will have a huge impact on the American people, yet it is receiving little attention. What is it? It is a proposal to dramatically diminish a constitutionally protected right by fundamentally altering America's patent system. If H.R. 1908, the bill in question, passes, there will be tremendous long-term negative consequences for our country. Patent law is thought to be so complicated and esoteric that most people tune out once they realize that's what the subject is. Yet our technological genius and the laws protecting and promoting that genius have been at the heart of America's success as a Nation. America's technological edge has permitted the American people to have the highest standard of living in the world and permitted our country to sail safely through troubled waters, the troubled waters of world wars and international threats. American technology has made all the difference. And it is the American patent law that has determined what technology, what level of technology development that America has had. Protecting individual rights, even of the little guy, has been the hallmark of our country. Patent rights, the right to own one's creation, are one of those rights that are written into the United States Constitution. In fact, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and others, all our Founding Fathers were not only people that believed in freedom, but they also believed in technology and the potential of American genius. Visit Monticello and see what Thomas Jefferson did with the time after he penned the words of the Declaration of Independence and after he served as President of the United States. He went back to Monticello and he spent his time inventing things, inventing pieces of equipment and technologies that would lift the burden from the shoulders of labor. And then there was Benjamin Franklin, again, a man who participated in the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution. He was the inventor of the bifocal. He was the inventor of the stove that kept people warm. Until then people only had fireplaces. He had many other inventions to his name. Yet he was also a man, one of our cherished Founding Fathers, who helped us create this free Nation. He believed in freedom and technology and believed that with freedom and technology we could increase the standard of living of our people, not just the elite, but of all the American people. We have had the strongest protection system in terms of patents in the world; and that is why, in the history of humankind, there has never been a more innovative or creative people. It didn't just happen. It happened because in our Constitution, our Founding Fathers saw to it that the laws protecting one's intellectual creations, both technology and written communications, that those creative people would own their creations. No, it's not just the diversity of our society that has created the wondrous standard of living that we have all bragged about. This is not simply the diversity of our people and some notion that we have by coming from all over the world that has created the idea that all people should have opportunity and provided our people with opportunity. No, the innovation and progress and opportunity that we've enjoyed in America can be traced to our law, the law that protected the property rights of our people, just as we protected the political, just as we've protected the personal rights of our citizens. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. But he also invented interchangeable parts for manufacturing. How did that change America? How did that change the world? It uplifted us so people could have different sets of clothing that they could wear. The common person was helped by the fact of America's creative genius. Eli Whitney was a product of the American Constitution. Cyrus McCormick invented the reaper. Before that people had to carry heavy pieces of equipment, scythes and reapers that were based on human strength and not strength of technology. With the invention of the reaper, people had more food, people had full stomachs. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph, and from it came, of course, the telephone. And then there was Thomas Edison who invented the light bulb and so many of the other inventions. These were not just accidents. These were created because these people were able to flourish because they had constitutional protections for their rights of their invention. One segment of our population, black Americans, were prolific inventors. Even at times when their rights were not being recognized, even when they faced major discrimination in our country, and at that time, even then, the issue of patent protection for our black citizens was recognized and because of that, many black Americans excelled in the area of inventions, men like Jan Matzeliger, who invented a machine that was used in shoe manufacturing. And before Matzeliger, and he was a former black slave, before he invented this shoe manufacturing machine, people in this country and all over the world usually wore one or two pairs of shoes for their entire life. And it was he that brought down dramatically, brought down the cost of shoes for the entire population. One of our product American black inventors. George Washington Carver, a world respected scientist and inventor, and so many more in the black community. Why? Because in that era, when blacks were discriminated against, as I say, we actually respected the rights of ownership of black inventors and thus they excelled when their rights were protected. We are proud of our history of technology, because we know, as Americans, we have, as we have always known throughout our country's history, that these inventions that we're talking about, made by Americans of every background, helped elevate the standard of living of all Americans. It created more wealth, wealth that was created with less labor and less burden on our people. It increased the standard of living of working people in this country so that not only the elite prospered, but all of the people had a full belly and clothes for their children. The opportunity of all people who are part of the American brotherhood and sisterhood, the well-being of those people can be traced, not just to our diversity, which is something we celebrate, but also to the constitutional protection of our rights. And one of those rights which is so often overlooked is the right of people, the creators of new ideas, to own those ideas, whether we're talking about the written word or whether we're talking about technological advances. And then of course, when we're talking about this, how can anyone forget the Wright brothers. The Wright brothers. We remember the Wright brothers. They were two guys who worked in a bicycle shop. They ended up inventing something just less than 100 years ago, or just about 100 years ago actually, just a few more years than 100 years ago, and they were told, 110 years ago that it was impossible for them to make this invention. Yet, they went ahead. The elites were telling them it was impossible. They went ahead and they spent their own money, their own time. They saved up. They had very little capital. They were the ultimate little guys, and they moved ahead and they did finally receive a patent because they changed the future of humankind, because they were the ones, of course, who took us from our feet planted on the ground to taking us off the ground and putting us on the road to the heavens. Just two ordinary Americans. We Americans are proud that with our opportunity all people have a chance and all people can help pull the rest of us up into the heavens like the Wright brothers. It was not only the raw muscle of every American. And so often people mistakenly think that human progress is a result of whether people work hard or not. That is not why people have higher standards of living. There are many people all over the world who work hard. They work strenuously hard. They work 15 hours a day. Their jobs are grueling. But no matter how hard they work, their society doesn't progress. Their families don't live any better. No, hard work is not the only thing. Yes, hard work is part of it, but ingenuity and creativity, the intellectual part of the equation is vitally important to the success of any nation. And, yes, the legal system is also a vital part of that formula that will lead to uplifting all of humankind and can be seen in the example of the United States. So, yes, Americans work hard, just as others have. But Americans had their rights protected under law. And that's what permitted the innovators and the creators and the technologists to thrive in this country and what pulled the standard of living of all of our people up. What was established was a system in our Constitution and with our laws and our patent system that would protect ingenuity and creativity. We treated intellectual property, the creation of new technologies, as we treated property, as we treated personal, and as we've treated political, rights. And that is what America is all about. Every person has rights. Now, we didn't always live up to that dream; and, yes, there was discrimination, terrible discrimination against black citizens and we always have to recognize that. And against Indian Americans and others. But we have tried our best, and we are moving forward trying to perfect our system. But every American, every American has benefited by the fact that our technologies have been protected under constitutional law; and thus our creators, our creative population has managed to bring about a higher standard of living and opportunities for all Americans. Today we face a great historical challenge. And this challenge comes at exactly a time when our country is threatened from abroad economically, as never before. We must prevail over our economic competitors and adversaries, or the American people will suffer. There are people who think of themselves at war with us. We know that radical Islam thinks they're at war with us. But we also have people who think they're at war with us economically. They're at war with the well-being of the American people. They see us and the well-being of our people as their target. We must win this war, this economic competition that we are entering, this economic competition based not on hard work but on technology and creative genius; and if we do not win this war, our people will lose. Our people will lose especially if we permit the technology and creative genius of our people to be stolen by people who are our economic adversaries and to be used to outcompete our own people. If we lose this battle, our people will suffer. Future generations will see their standard of living decline, as well as the safety and strength of our country. If we do not remain technologically superior, we will find that in the future the livelihood of our people and the safety of our country will be in jeopardy. Our economic adversaries, and their allies within the American business community, and let us note that, that our economic adversaries have allies in multinational corporations, many of them who are, what, part of the American business community. But these economic adversaries are engaged in a systematic attack on our well-being, and thus they have noticed one of the strongest and most important elements of America's success has been the patent protection that we have offered the American people. Today, multinational corporations, some based here in the United States, run by an elite whose allegiance is to no country, these people have tremendous influence near the Nation's Capitol. You can see it when it comes to China policy. You can see it when it comes to trade policy. And, now, in their attempt to undermine patent protections, you can see that in this effort to undermine the constitutional patent protections that our people have enjoyed for over 200 years. There is a corporate elite at play who don't give it a second thought to move their manufacturing operations to China. Now, here you've got Americans supposedly, American businessmen. They're moving their manufacturing to a country run by a Marxist dictatorship. This corporate elite betrays American values and betrays the American working people themselves. What? Why do they do this? Well, they would rather exploit Chinese slave labor with the full cooperation of a dictatorial Chinese regime, than they would pay the market rate for the American working person and as well, which is part of the price, of course, of having a free society in which they are protected here at home. Yet, they would go to China and make a deal with the world's worst human rights abuser to set up a manufacturing unit there. And this very same elite will do that and betray the American worker in order to make a 25 percent profit rather than a 10 percent or a 5 percent profit at home, while at the same time the American working people will get their share of the benefit because they're working in that company. No, the American corporate elite that goes to China would rather do that. Many of them, by the way, are part of the electronics industry, as we know. The electronics industry has moved in a big way to China. They've even, in fact, claimed that, oh, well if we just have more interaction economically with China, that, what will happen? Well, China will evolve into a democratic society. Yet, these same corporate leaders, supposedly Americans, help the Chinese Government set up a computer system that will aid them in tracking down democratic opponents of the dictatorship. We know now that the Falun Gong in China is suffering immense repression, as are other believers in God. Yet, we have a business elite that doesn't blink an eye at that and goes there and invests their technology and their capital in creating manufacturing there. Well, people who will do that won't think twice about stealing a small inventor's or a little guy's invention so that they won't have to pay royalties to that American inventor. Why should they? If they are willing to deal with the tyrants and the gangsters in China and betray the American workers, why would they care about giving royalties to some inventor? And what are they doing? They are helping steal the American inventors' products without giving the royalties, and, worse, they are taking it to China to use in manufacturing facilities over there that will even put more Americans out of work here. How could any American do that? Well, they aren't Americans. What they are, if you get right down to it, they are globalists. Yes, people have to understand that here we are, our country has evolved into now this new dichotomy of globalists versus patriots. Well, put me on the side of the patriots. We are supposed to be watching out for the interests of the American people. We are not supposed to be watching out for the American business elite any more than we are supposed to be watching out for the American worker. They are supposed to have equal rights. And one of those rights has been the protection of intellectual property. But the business and corporate elites that want to move to China, the same ones who are behind this legislation, H.R. 1908, the electronics industry, want to steal the technology being developed by the little guy in America so they won't have to pay royalties. That is what it comes down to. And these same people who are building the factories in China, the same people who are giving technology to China, the same people now who want to take the ideas of American inventors and take them to China and elsewhere without having to pay royalties, these are the people behind 1908. The justification for this attack on the patent system, guess what, it is called harmonization of our laws with the rest of the world. If you ask those people why do we have to make these fundamental changes to our patent law? Our patent law has been there for 200 years. They will tell you that we have to harmonize our law with the rest of the world and our laws are totally different. We cannot permit corporate elitists who consider themselves globalists to mold our policies, especially if it means diminishing the legal protections for our American citizens, especially those inventors and creative people who are coming up with the technologies that Americans are going to need to have if our country is to be prosperous and secure in the future. If the globalists are successful, 20 years from now our citizens will wonder what hit them. Pearl Harbor happened in a moment. Our people woke up to the threat and they mobilized. Today it is happening slowly, and the attack is less evident. But rights are being eroded by the changes in our law that will cause a decreasing standard of living to our people and damage our way of life, and that damage will be devastating to the American people in years ahead, and they will never know what hit them. This attack is being conducted not by bombers in Pearl Harbor and Hawaii, but it is being done by lobbyists in the Nation's capital who are out to pillage our wealth and transfer that wealth and power overseas. You see it everywhere. Who is watching out for the interests of the American people? We will let the public determine that. But first we have to get the public's attention. And these moves on this patent bill have been so quiet. The vote is going to be Friday, H.R. 1908. They are going to try to slip this by. One of the steps necessary for them to transfer the wealth and to cut down this dominance that the American people have over the global economy, one of the things they have to do to achieve that goal so we are harmonized with the rest of the world is to destroy our patent system and make it like the patent system from other countries. Lobbyists have been hired by well-heeled multinational corporations and by companies who no longer have any desire to pay for the use of technology that has been developed by other American citizens, little guys. They, of course, are not saying we are out to destroy the patent system. They will be aghast when they hear that I am suggesting they want to destroy the patent system. They know that is what it is, but they will act like they are aghast. Now, there are lots of flaws in our patent system. We hear about a widespread problem, and there are some problems. But we know that many of the problems are just being exaggerated. For example, we hear horror stories concerning companies that are tied up for years in court and eventually have to relent to trial lawyers in terms about delays in the system. We hear about that. We hear about examiners who are overworked, which is true. Our patent examiners are heavily overworked. They aren't getting the training they need, and they are not getting the pay they deserve. So we have got some problems in our patent system that we need to take care of. But that has nothing to do with H.R. 1908. In reality, of course, some of these problems aren't real. Patent lawsuits are not a major problem, as people are claiming they are. Between 1993 and 2005, the number of patent lawsuits versus the number of patents granted has been steady at around 1.5 percent. In fact, in 2006 only 102 patent cases actually went to trial. So when they say we have got to do this to correct the lawsuit problem, there isn't a major lawsuit problem. But there are real problems that need to be solved. Our patent examiners, as I said, are overworked and they are underpaid. They need to be trained. More money that comes from people buying patents, we need to keep that right at the patent office and train those patent examiners and give them the money they need so we can hire the top quality people. Unfortunately, the legislation making its way through the system does not correct the problems. The problems are being used as an excuse, but the proposed changes that we are talking about here are not dealing with the problems. So there must be some other goal of this legislation. So let's understand we need patent legislation that speeds up the patent process, provides training and compensation for the patent examiners, and helps us protect our inventors against theft. Yes, we need to help our inventors protect themselves against foreign threat and, yes, even domestic threat. And we need to put some work into patent reform which will protect our inventors. Well, the bill that we are talking about has nothing to do with that. A bill that handled those goals would be justified and welcomed. Unfortunately, what we are witnessing is a replay of the illegal immigration strategy. The American people are crying out for protection against a virtual invasion of illegal immigrants into our country. The special interests who benefited by this flood of illegals tried to push an immigration bill through the Congress that would have made the situation worse. That's right. They had a bill in the name of illegal immigration reform that would have made it worse. To confuse the public, they kept calling it a ``comprehensive'' bill as if it was designed to fix the problem. Instead, it was designed for one thing and one thing only. The comprehensive bill for illegal immigration was designed to give amnesty to all those illegals who came here illegally, which would have attracted, had we given them that amnesty, tens of millions of more illegals into our country. So it would have made it worse. But with a straight face, those who were advocating illegal immigration reform kept calling it a ``comprehensive'' plan even though they knew that implied they were reforming the system to make it better when, in fact, they were going the opposite direction of what the vast majority of people knew was the problem. And the problem was what? A huge influx of illegal immigrants into our country, and giving amnesty would have made it worse. Well, the same strategy is seemingly being used by those who are behind the effort to destroy the American patent system. So you will never hear them say they want to destroy the American patent system the same way that the advocates of comprehensive immigration would never admit what they were doing was amnesty. No, they are out to destroy the patent system as it has worked since the founding of our country. Instead of arguing their case, they are simply calling it a ``comprehensive'' bill. Does that sound familiar? A ``comprehensive patent bill,'' that makes it sound like you are going to make it better. No, you are out to destroy the patent system. A ``comprehensive immigration bill,'' that sounds like you want to end this immigration influx into our country. No, it is going to make it worse. Well, that is why the American people are a little bit confused. Who is watching out for the American people? The American people have got to pay attention to this. This bill, H.R. 1809, is similar to the one that we barely beat back 10 years ago. I called that the ``Steal American Technologies Act,'' and that was back 10 years ago. And, believe me, we were up against the most powerful corporations. We were just a ragtag group of people. Marcy Kaptur on that side of the aisle and Steny Hoyer helped us out as well, Don Manzullo and myself and just a couple others. We fought these special interests, and no one thought we had a chance. But we won. And we won because the American people got wind of what was happening, and we won. We beat it back, and that was in 1997. But here we go again with a bill that looks almost exactly like that bill in so many ways. So I will just call H.R. 1809 the ``Steal American Technologies Act, Part Two.'' First and foremost, we have to, of course, look at what does H.R. 1908 do? First and foremost, it is designed to weaken the patent protection of the American inventor. So let's just note that right off. The purpose of the bill is to weaken the patent protection, the constitutional rights that the American inventor has had since the founding of our country. I support real reform, as do the others who oppose this bill, but the proposed changes in H.R. 1908 will cause the collapse of the American patent system, the system that has sustained America for 200 years, and that is the real purpose behind this bill. Make no mistake about it. For the Record I would submit a list of those major people and organizations who are opposed to the bill, Mr. Speaker. At this point in my remarks, I submit that list for the Record. Organizations and Companies With Objections to Berman Patent Legislation (H.R. 1908) 3M, Abbott Accelerated Technologies, Inc., Acorn Cardiovascular Inc., Adams Capital Management, Adroit Medical Systems, Inc., AdvaMed, Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc., Advanced Medical Optics, Inc., Advanced Neuromodulation Systems, Inc., Aero-Marine Company, AFL-CIO, African American Republican Leadership Council, AIPLA--American Intellectual Property Law Association. Air Liquide, Air Products, ALD NanoSolutions, Inc., ALIO Industries, Allergan, Inc., Almyra, Inc., AmberWave Systems Corporation, American Conservative Union (The), American Intellectual property Law, Association (AIPLA), American Seed Trade, Americans for Sovereignty. Americans for the Preservation of Liberty, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, AngioDynamics, Inc., Applied Medical, Applied Nanotech, Inc., Argentis Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Arizona Biolndustry Association, ARYx Therapeutics, Ascenta Therapeutics, Inc., Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). Asthmatx, Inc., AstraZeneca, Aware, Inc., Baxa Corporation, Baxter Healthcare Corporation, BayBio, Beckman Coulter, BIO--Biotechnology Industry Organization, BioCardia, Inc., BIOCOM, Biogen Idec, Biomedical Association, BioOhio, Bioscience Institute, Biotechnology Council of New Jersey. Blacks for Economic Security Trust Fund, BlazeTech Corporation, Boston Scientific Corporation, Bridgestone Americas Holding, Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb, BuzzLogic, California Healthcare Institute, California Healthcare Institute (The), Canopy Ventures, Carbide Derivative Technologies, Cardiac Concepts, Inc., CardioDynamics, Cargill, Inc., Cassie-Shipherd Group (The), Caterpillar, Celgene Corporation, Cell Genesys, Inc., Center 7, Inc., Center for Small Business and the Environment (The), Centre for Security Policy, Cephalon, CheckFree, Christian Coalition of America. Cincinnati Sub-Zero Products, Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform (The), Coalitions for America, CogniTek Management Systems, Inc., Colorado Bioscience Association, Conceptus, Inc., CONNECT, Connecticut United for Research Excellence, Cornell University, Corning Incorporated, Coronis Medical Ventures, Council for America, CropLife America, Cryptography Research, Cummins-Allison Corporation. Cummins Inc., CVRx Inc., Dais Analytic Corporation, Dartmouth Regional Technology Center, Inc., Declaration Alliance, Deltanoid Pharmaceuticals, Digimarc Corporation, DirectPointe, Dow Chemical Company, Dupont, Dura-Line Corporation, Dynatronics Co., Eagle Forum, Eastman Chemical Company, Economic Development Center, Edwards Lifesciences, Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Electronics for Imaging, Eli Lilly and Company, Ellman Innovations LLC, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Evalve, Inc. Exxon Mobile Corporation, Fallbrook Technologies Inc., FarSounder, Inc. Footnote.com. Gambro BCT, General Electric, Genomic Health, Inc., Gen- Probe Incorporated, Genzyme, Georgia Biomedical Partnership, Glacier Cross, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Glenview State Bank, Hawaii Science & Technology Council, HealthCare Institute of New Jersey, HeartWare, Inc., Helius, Inc., Henkel Corporation, Hoffman-LaRoche, Inc. iBIO, Imago Scientific Instruments, Impulse Dynamics (USA), Inc., Indiana Health Industry Forum, Indiana University, Innovation Alliance, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)-USA, InterDigital Communications Corporation, Intermolecular, Inc., International Association of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), Invitrogen Corporation, Iowa Biotechnology Association, ISTA Pharmaceuticals, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Leadership Institute (The), Let Freedom Ring, Life Science Alley, LITMUS, LLC. LSI Corporation, Lux Capital Management, Luxul Corporation, Maryland Taxpayers' Association. Masimo Corporation, Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, MassMEDIC, Maxygen Inc., MDMA--Medical Device Manufacturer's Association, Medical College of Wisconsin, MedImmune, Inc., Medtronic, Merck, Metabasis Therapeutics, Inc., Metabolex, Inc., Metabolix, Inc., Metacure (USA), Inc., MGI Pharma Inc., MichBio, Michigan Small Tech Association, Michigan State University, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Milliken & Company, Mohr, Davidow Ventures, Monsanto Company, Motorola. NAM--National Association of Manufacturers, NanoBioMagnetics, Inc. (NBMI), NanoBusiness Alliance (The), NanoInk, Inc., NanoIntegris, Inc., Nanomix, Inc., Nanophase Technologies, NanoProducts Corporation, Nanosys, Inc., Nantero, Inc., National Center for Public Policy Research, Nektar Therapeutics, Neoconix, Inc., Neuro Resource Group (NRG), Neuronetics, Inc., NeuroPace, New England Innovation Alliance, New Hampshire Biotechnology Council, New Hampshire Department of Economic Development, New Mexico Biotechnical and Biomedical Association, New York Biotechnology Association. Norseman Group (The), North Carolina Biosciences Organization, North Carolina State University, North Dakota State University, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Northwestern University, Novartis Corporation, Novasys Medical Inc., NovoNordisk, NUCRYST Pharmaceuticals, Inc. NuVasive, Inc., Nuvelo, Inc., Ohio State University, OpenCEL, LLC, Palmetto Biotechnology Alliance, Patent Cafe.com, Inc., Patent Office Professional Association, Pennsylvania Bio, Pennsylvania State University, PepsiCo, Inc., Pfizer, PhRMA-- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Physical Sciences Inc., PointeCast Corporation, Power Innovations International, PowerMetal Technologies, Inc., Preformed Line Products, Procter & Gamble, Professional Inventors' Alliance, ProRhythm, Inc., Purdue University, Pure Plushy Inc., QUALCOMM Inc. QuantumSphere, Inc., QuesTek Innovations LLC, Radiant Medical, Inc., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Research Triangle Park, NC, Retractable Technologies, Inc., RightMarch.com, S & C Electric Company, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Sangamo Biosciences, Inc., ScanDisk Corporation, Semprius, Inc., Small Business Association of Michigan--Economic Development Center, Small Business Exporters, Association of the United States (The). Small Business Technology Council (The), Smart Bomb Interactive, Smile Reminder, SmoothShapes, Inc., Solera Networks, South Dakota Biotech Association, Southern California Biomedical Council, Spiration, Inc., St. Louis University, Standup Bed Company (The), State of New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development, Stella Group, Ltd. (The), StemCells, SurgiQuest, Inc. Symyx Technologies, Inc., Tech Council of Maryland/MdBio, Technology Patents & Licensing, Tennessee Biotechnology Association, Tessera, Inc., Texas A&M, Texas Healthcare, Texas Instruments, Three Arch Partners. United Technologies, University of California System, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of New Hampshire, University of North Carolina System, University of Rochester, University of Utah, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US Business and Industry Council, US Council for International Business. USGI Medical, USW--United Steelworkers, Vanderbilt University and Medical Center, Virent Energy Systems, Inc., Virginia Biotechnology Association, Visidyne, Inc., VisionCare Opthamalogic Technologies, Inc., Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association, Washington University, WaveRx, Inc. Wayne State University, Wescor, Inc., Weyerhaeuser, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), Wisconsin Biotechnology and Medical Device Association, Wyeth. That list includes some large companies. It includes biotech companies, for example, who are putting out so much of the technology that we will need for the future. It includes pharmaceuticals who know that there are companies around the world who are waiting to steal the product after they have spent hundreds of millions of American dollars into developing new pharmaceuticals. Almost all of our major universities are against this patent bill because they themselves are developing new technologies and they know that the new patent bill will undermine, undermine, their efforts to create these new technologies and to benefit from the technologies, as they should because they are the creators. The patent examiners are against this legislation. Labor unions are against this. The AFL-CIO is against this legislation. That is why we have another bipartisan coalition with Ms. Kaptur and Judge Hastings and others who are on our side in this battle. It is a bipartisan Republican-Democrat coalition. It is the patriots versus the globalists. So why are so many opposed to it? Perhaps it's easiest to understand the issue, because if you talk about what this bill does in terms of disclosure, and what does that mean, in this bill it's called publication. From the founding of our country until recent years, it has been mandated that every patent application be held confidential until the patent was issued. So if you're an inventor and you've got an idea and you've developed it, you filed the application; but you know that that's going to be held secret. In fact, patent examiners could be put in jail for felonies if they release that information. Well, this, of course, is dramatically different than the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, after 18 months, in Japan and Europe, if you file for a patent, even if you don't get the patent, they're going to publish it for everybody to see. And the inventor is so vulnerable, they have to give up usually almost all the rights to the things they've invented. That's why you don't see the Japanese inventing many things; they perfect things, but they don't invent them. In short, this bill, H.R. 1908, the Steal American Technologies Act, the sequel, now get into this, this is really important and it's easy to understand. This bill would eliminate the right of confidentiality to American inventors. What does that mean? H.R. 1908 would mandate the publication of all patent applications 18 months after the patent is applied for whether or not the patent has been granted. Does everybody understand what we're talking about here? We're talking about American inventors up until now have known, if they so chose to do this, they would not have to reveal their secrets until the patent was given to them. Thus they had some legal protection. This bill will take that right away from the American inventors so that if they apply for a patent on very sophisticated technological breakthroughs, the Chinese, the Indians, the Japanese, the Koreans, they will have all have the information and be in manufacturing before our small inventors even get their patent. With the Steal American Technologies Act, does that sound like that's what I'm describing? That's exactly what we're describing. We are inviting the foreign thieves to come in and take our most precious technological advances and use those technologies against us to put our people out of work. That's why the labor unions are against this bill. That's why the Democratic Party should be against this bill and the Republican Party should be against it. That's why patriots should be against it. It is easy for everyone to understand that. Those pushing H.R. 1908 want China, Japan, Korea, India and others to have every detail of developing technologies and of our creative ideas even before the patents have been issued. This legislation will facilitate China, India, and other countries in their efforts to steal our creative genius. First they will say, oh, well the inventor then could come back and sue these companies overseas who are using their creation that they've gotten by taking it from the information that was published. Oh, give me a break. Does anyone really believe that an American inventor can go to China or India and can sue after they've been in production for years? They can't even get the information of how much has been produced over there at that time. So, yes, this is the Steal American Technologies Act, and we have got to stop them. Secondly, this bill changes the fundamental concept of the American patent system, another fundamental concept which this will end up with very dramatic and confusing consequences, although it is a little hard to understand. Traditionally, ownership rights go to those inventors who were the first ones to invent the technology in question. That does not necessarily mean that they were the first one to actually file some type of patent application that dealt with that particular issue or that particular type of technology. No. If someone actually had an invention of a machine, their patent, if they actually invented it and they could prove that, it wasn't the first to file that counts, it was the person who actually invented something. That was a principle in our system. And basically what it did is it prevented businesses and individuals from having to, for every time they made a little bit of progress, to go out and try to apply for another patent. Because with this system, what this bill will do, it will make sure that businesses now will be flooding the Patent Office every time they make one little step forward towards an eventual goal, rather than waiting for the goal to be achieved and have a complete new system that can be justified to have a patent. So the people of the Patent Office believe that this change, which seems innocuous, from something that has worked well for the United States for 200 years, has worked well for us, and now they want to change it so that we can be like the rest of the world supposedly, while the rest of the world, the only people who can operate at this level are these big multinational corporations, the very elite rich guys. No. We want our regular Americans to be able to operate under this system. And making it first-to-file makes it so much more expensive because you have to apply for so many more patents, the little guy gets frozen out. Of course those people that are pushing this harmonization know that very well. They just don't care about the little guy because they are Goliath, and the little guy is just a little David down there. I am very happy that the history of the United States Government is the history of us being for the little guy over the big guy, that we protect the rights of the little guy. That's why our patent law is different than the patent law in Japan, where economic shoguns control their economy. The third, H.R. 1908 fundamentally changes the legal criteria in which patents can be challenged. It provides numerous ways in which large companies, foreigners, and other infringers can attack and add costs to the inventors. So we've added all sorts of new ways for those guys to come in and attack that small inventor. We have opened up the system to the point where the inventor can be attacked before the patent has been granted, and also, the inventor can then, also with this legislation, be attacked after the patent has been granted. And this again changes those rules by offering new avenues to attack the small guy. Of course the big guys don't care; they've got lots of lawyers working for them. What this will mean is the big guys can beat down the little guys just like they do in Japan. Don't we want to harmonize with Japan? Don't we want to have a society like Japan where ordinary citizens never dream about increasing their standard of living and rising up and having their children live better? No. This bill is a catastrophe for the little inventor, and that's why we have so many people who have opposed this bill, but yet it keeps moving forward. It keeps moving forward because there are special interests who will make huge sums of money by not having to may royalties, especially in the electronics industry, which is different. Remember, they are different, the electronics industry than pharmaceuticals and biotech and the universities and the others and the smaller inventor. Why are they different? Because what they do is they put together a product with many different components, all of which you have to pay a royalty in order to use them. They don't want to pay those royalties. They want to steal it from the little guy. Well, I'm sorry, the electronics industry has to pay for what they use. They're not going to set up a system that undermines the protection that the little guys, that we've had for 200 years in this country. This bill complicates efforts to establish willfulness on the part of an infringer. So what happens is you have undermined some of the legal criteria used in the case if a small inventor or someone does go after an infringer. This bill changes some of the actual criteria that are being used. It creates a re-examined practice for facilitating attacks by infringers on legitimate patent holders. In short, this bill allows large companies to swallow costs and risks so that it can beat down the rightful owners of technology. Now, it seems like a horror story to America's inventors, but we are told what is really going on here, of course, as I keep saying, it's an effort to harmonize our laws. Now, doesn't that sound nice? And doesn't comprehensive reform sound nice? Just like comprehensive reform sounded good for the immigration bill. We knew what that was now, don't we? Comprehensive reform was a way to give amnesty and destroy our protections against illegal immigration without having to ever confront the argument. This comprehensive reform of the patent system is the same strategy. Yes, they are going to harmonize the law with the rest of the world. That's harmony. That sounds like a wonderful word. And ``comprehensive,'' that also sounds great. Well, we have had the strongest patent protection of any country on this planet, just as we had the same and the strongest protection for the rights of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and other rights that we hold sacred. What would happen if in order to harmonize the freedom of religion and freedom of speech for the rest of the world, we were told that the protection of our freedoms that we now enjoy need to be diminished so that they could be harmonized with the rest of the world? Let's say we could be like the people of Singapore or some other country that is not necessarily democratic, but is not a dictatorship either. What would happen if the American people were told that? What would happen, I would tell you, there would be a revolution through the United States of America. You are not going to diminish the rights of the American people in order to harmonize the law internationally. Forget it. I don't care if it's personal rights, political rights, property rights or technology and creative rights like we're talking about tonight. The patriots in this country are not going to see their rights diminished in order to create a new world order where we can all live in harmony with the elite telling us what to do. However, the move to harmonize patent law, of course, is going smoothly right now, unlike it would if we tried to say we're going to bring down and diminish all those other rights, because there would be a revolution right now. But with patent law it's going a lot more smoothly. In fact, it's coming up to a vote Friday and most people have no idea it's coming to the floor, or most Americans and most people even in this body have no idea of the significance of H.R. 1908. Why? Because it's being kept very low key. There's no fanfare. Not many people can even understand it. As I say, they tune out as soon as they hear the word ``patent law.'' All of this, of course, while the freedom and well-being of future generations is being frittered away. We are on the edge. If this bill passes, it will have dramatic impact on the well-being of average Americans. The fact is we have had the strongest patent rights protection, and that is why we have had more innovation and a higher standard of living than any other people in the world. The common man here has the opportunity that common people in other parts of the world do not have because America has had technological superiority, and we've had a system based on protecting individual rights, the individual rights of the little guy, not just the big guys. If our rights to patent protection are diminished, which is what H.R. 1908 will do, if we do that, if we diminish the rights of our patent protection in order to harmonize with the rest of the world, we will end up with the same type of opportunity and the same type of rights that they have in Third World countries. Is that what we want? Do we want our people to have harmonized rights, new world order so we can all live like they live in Third World countries? Perhaps if someone is a corporate elitist who lives in a gated community, that might sound good. Hey, we can have all kinds of peons just walking around who will do my bidding and I can send my kids to private school. We live behind a gated community, I can actually have a driver and my kids can have nannies and we could have people cleaning up the yard and I can have my manufacturing facility in China, where they don't care if they're polluting the air or not. Boy, I'll tell you, that doesn't hurt those guys because they don't identify, when you say Third World country, they don't say, gee, I would be living worse off, they think it's the other guy, the little guy. And they're right, it's the little guys. Yeah. These people don't even want to pay royalties. The electronics industry, what this is based on, does not want to pay royalties to the little guys. If you want to see anything more about this, you want to know the historic background of it, go down to the Nation's Capitol and you will find a statue to Philo Farnsworth. Philo Farnsworth was the guy who invented the picture tube. RCA, Mr. Sarnoff, the president of RCA, tried to steal that technology from Mr. Farnsworth because he was just a little guy. And for 20 years they fought it out, the biggest, most powerful corporation. Instead of just paying Mr. Farnsworth a royalty and giving him some credit, they had to steal it from him, to beat him down in the ground and smash him like a bug. But luckily we live in the United States of America. That case went all the way to the Supreme Court; and God bless America, the Supreme Court sided with Farnsworth instead of this RCA that tried to dominate this man who gave them the genius that they needed to make the picture tube work. We wouldn't have had it. They were going in the exactly the wrong direction, but they couldn't even give him the credit. That's what the corporate elite thinks about us little guys. That's the way they do it. That's why they want to change constitutional protections, make it a new world order. That's why we have all of this talk about globalism and all these international bodies that we're going to give power to because our corporate elite doesn't feel threatened by that, but each and every American should because none of those people overseas are going to watch out for us. H.R. 1908 is coming up on Friday. It's a major attack on a constitutional right that's been part of the American system, part of the American system since the founding of your country. It's written into our Constitution. We cannot make those changes and expect things are going to stay the same. But we beat this before. Marcy Kaptur, Dana Rohrabacher, Don Manzullo and a few others, we beat back this attempt. But we did it because the American people called their congressmen and said, ``Don't vote for the H.R. 1908 Steal American Technologies Act.'' That is what they did before, and we won. We contacted our congressmen. That is how we beat comprehensive immigration reform. We can beat this bill, too, just like that. We can watch out for America if the PATRIOT Act and we watch out for the little guy together, if all of us come together and watch out for the little guy, all of our rights will be protected. That is what America is all about. I beg my fellow Members to pay attention to this vote. I beg the American people to pay attention to this vote. There will be dramatic changes in our life and the opportunity our children will face and the safety of our country if we change this fundamental of our law. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.