URGENT ALERT!

John Trudel, Certified Management Consultant

Dear People --

I have been inundated with concerned messages about HR 1907. The comments fall into three categories: 1) "Don't drop out of the fight, John." and 2) "Why aren't you more worried about [pick one of the Titles in HR 1907, they all have problems]?" and 3) "What should we do?"

I AM NOT QUITTING

First, I am NOT dropping out of the fight. I did ask Congressman Roherbacher's junior staff person, Wayne Paugh, to remove me from his distribution list, as I felt substantive discussions and good faith were lacking. The straw that broke that camel's back was Mr. Paugh's insisting that Dana was against "prior user rights" but was in favor of Title II of HR 1907 that grants prior user rights. Say what?!

I have no time for this type of discussion. I have a business to run. Mr. Paugh is getting paid for his dissembling, but I am not getting paid to debate him. Sorry, people, but debating with Mr. Paugh is just not a good use of my time. Perhaps someone must debate him, but that someone is not me.

WHAT TO DO?

The crazy thing about HR 1907 is that it is being promoted as an allegedly reasonable "compromise" that offers something for everyone. That is a sham, but the fact that those who promote this bill include former staunch defenders of our patent system makes it credible. The implication is that if WE don't "negotiate" this compromise in good faith, then WE are (must be) unreasonable "bad guys."

The reality, of course, is that this is much like tediously discussing the shape of the table in order to negotiate a Vietnam peace settlement. First off, HR 1907 is a moving target. There were AT LEAST three different print versions between March 14 and when the "final" one was dropped on March 24.

Before it was even posted on Thomas, the proponents of this bill were trying to get it rushed to a vote WITHOUT DEBATE under "suspension of the rules." Right now, we are told, it is a "work in progress" and the "final" version is changing. Meanwhile, efforts continue to have it voted on without debate.

Also, per Mr. Paugh (above), who seems to be the de facto lead negotiator for HR 1907 -- the "negotiation" dialog is a farce. That's why I dropped out. In my opinion, it leads nowhere useful.

The reason for all this slight of hand, of course, is that HR 1907 cannot stand the light of day. That is why it is so artfully written to obscure and why it keeps changing.

Still, my gentle suggestion is to NOT oppose HR 1907 in it's entirety. That may get you discounted and branded as unreasonable. Instead, do two things:

1. Pick a "Title" to hate, and POLITELY tell Congress what's bad about it. I personally intend to focus on Title VI, since I am convinced that everything else in this bill could be fixed, and, if that passed, we'd still lose our patent system to foreign interests.

2. Keep asking Congress to have this voluminous, confusing, flawed legislation returned to committee for simplification and full debate. Keep insisting that a full debate is needed.

The best people to tell that to are your own congress person and the following list: Rep Hastert, Rep Delay, Rep. Armey, Rep Gephardt, Rep Bonior, and Rep Hoyer. This list represents the house leadership who will set the rules for how this bill is to be debated. Addresses can be found on http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/.

WHERE TO AIM?

That is a personal choice. Here is what a good patent lawyer whom I trust said about HR 1907 --

"The real SICK things (Secret Inventor's Compensation Killers) in HR1907 continue to be:

#1) Prior User Rights (submarine rights for large corporations) and #2) Early Publication (with no true, provisional rights)

A strange 3rd SICK thing is the "anti-Promoters section" (trust us, we're from the government & we are here to help).

#3) Everyone who helps an inventor is a "promoter" and all are guilty without due process of law. (What ever happened to "fraud" and all that other stuff? This is here to scare away legitimate promoters as well as the scam artists.) "

I concede that ALL THESE POINTS ARE VALID. With that said, this person did NOT mention what I think to be the MOST OMINOUS PART of HR 1907, Title VI.

As a working patent lawyer he has lived for so long without any real accountability for the PTO, that he thinks it can't get worse. (My response said, in part: "I am sure that you are right that there is very little accountability now. HR 1907 will make that worse. Today there is no "practical" oversight, while tomorrow there will be no "possible" oversight. I agree with you about all the other bad things, including #3 [Title I]. Right now I rarely work with inventors because I can't afford to -- they have no money to pay me. If that passes, I darn sure never will.")

I think can get MUCH worse. Conversely, I think that it can get much better if we insist on meaningful oversight by Congress of the PTO. (We saw what happened when Congress let the IRS run without oversight. Do we want to repeat that with the PTO?)

Incidentally, to their credit, I am told that the PTO workers oppose Title VI. Bless 'em, until Bruce Lehman the PTO was the only government office that had never had a scandal. Just as some in DOD and DOE tried to block the theft of our nuclear secrets, the PTO workers are still trying to defend our patent system.

I hate Title VI the most because it effectively makes the PTO director into America's Technology Czar, and removes all accountability. I see that as un-American and dangerous. At best, this person could be a loyal member of the Administration's Trade office, responsible for helping in the export of goods and technology. At best, this person could disallow any patent out-of-hand without any effective recourse on the part of the inventor. At best, this Czar will be, as was the past PTO commissioner, Bruce Lehman, a donation-seeking "fund raiser."

At worst -- and this is why I oppose Title VI -- the new Technology Czar could change the PTO rules any way he or she wanted to and it would be impossible to do anything about it. I think that Title VI, as written, MAY effectively remove the PTO from the Purview of Congress, the GAO, and the U.S. courts. That is bad news indeed. Worse yet, this MAY (I'm sure lawyers would be only to happy to argue this point -- for decades!) also remove any accountability to the Constitution or to U.S. citizens.

These things are better hidden in HR 1907 than in the predecessor legislation (HR 400 and HR 3460) which were explicit about removing the PTO, but removal is still there. After all, the core purpose of the Patent Wars is to implement the 1994 letters of agreement with Japan signed by Ron Brown and Bruce Lehman. Back in the HR 3460 days, Congress person Pat Schroder admitted on the floor of Congress that the bill's purpose was to convert our patent system into Japan's. To me, that is what this is about. The goal is to steal our patent system -- and, hence, ALL future U.S. technology -- for the benefit of foreign interests.

So God bless us all, and good luck. Don't give up hope. The system has worked well enough that the bills to sell out our patent system were blocked in the past two Congresses. You can block this one too, if you take the time to WRITE CONGRESS NOW.

E-Mail: jtrudel@gstis.net

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