Privacy, Business and Law

Dear President Clinton and Members of Congress:

We Represent a cross section of the Inventors and technology entrepreneurs who have made significant contributions to our country’s economic growth, standard of living, health and technological leadership.

We share your concern about the growth of the U. S. economy and your vision for America’s continued greatness, but we are concerned about unnecessary changes now being proposed in the U. S. patent law through enabling legislation for the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade. (GATT).

A unique and crucial part of our free enterprise system, the US patent system has made us a world leader, not just in pioneering new product concepts and technologies, but in bringing them to market. Inventions are part of our nation’s history; and the U. S. Constitution guarantees exclusive ownership of the rights to new products and technologies for a limited time.

Americans continue to benefit from high growth high-paying industries created by inventors and technology entrepreneurs as a review of the signatories of this letter demonstrates. In fact, Nobel Laureate Robert Solow has shown that at least 50 percent of the U. S. economy’s growth results from technological advances . Whole industries have emerged from inventions of Edison, Bell, and the Wright Brothers. U. S. technological leadership springs from the willingness of American inventors and inventors to challenge conventional wisdom – and from the incentives our patent system provides. Weakening that system threatens to eliminate these incentives and rob the U. S. of its leadership position.

We understand that the enabling legislation for GATT may include language that would change the present patent term from 17 years from the date of issuance to 20 years from the date of filing. While most U. S. patents take two or three years to issue, many important patents, especially those in new technologies take much longer – often a decade or more. By starting the clock ticking before a patent issues, this proposed change would encourage delaying tactics by those who don’t want the patent to issue; penalize inventors for patent office delays; tilt the playing field against pioneers and in favor of imitators, and significantly reduce both the worth of the patent and the incentive to invest in developing the invention. Without the critical element of strong patent protection, inventors will find it hard to attract venture capitalists to risk their resources in start-up business base on new technologies. Valuable new jobs will be lost and the U. S. will fall behind its competitors in the global economy.

We adamantly oppose any part of the proposed “TRIPS” legislation that is not absolutely required by GATT. GATT does not require for us to reduce American patent protection below current levels. GATT requires that the minimum term of a patent by 230 years. The United States could comply with GATT by strengthening its patent laws to provide that patents are protected for 20 years from the date of filing or 17 years from issuance, whichever is longer.

We must not allow unnecessary language to be included in GATT, particularly when it undermines the world’s strongest patent system. Any proposed patent law changes must be in a separate bill, apart from GATT. Such proposals should be voted on only after open Congressional hearings. Congress should have the benefit of testimony from inventors-not just big companies and their patent lawyers. America’s economic future changes in the balance.

Sincerely yours,

Paul Heckel

for Intellectual Property Creators and the inventors listed below
Members of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and some of their inventions

Dr. Frank Colton, Enovid, The first oral contraceptive
Raymond Damadian, M.D., The Magnetic resonance imaging scanner
Gertrude B. Elion, D.Sc., leukemia-fighting & transplant rejection drugs. Nobel Laureate
Dr. Jay Forester, Random access computer core memory
Gordon Gould, Optically pumped laser amplifiers
Dr. Wilson Greatbatch, The cardiac pacemaker
Leonard Greene, Aircraft stall warning device
Dr. Robert Hall, High-voltage, high-power semiconductor rectifiers
Dr. William Hanford, Polyurethane
Dr. James Hillier, Electron Lens Correction Device
Jack Kilby, Monolithic integrated circuit
Robert Ledley, M.D. The full body cat scanner
Dr. Irving Millman, Hepatitis B vaccine & test to detect hepatitis B
John Parsons, Numerically controlled machine tools
Dr. Robert Rines, High resolution image scanning radar, internal organ imaging

Members of the American College of Physician Inventors

Dr. Herbert Dardik, Umbilical vein graft
Dr. Thomas Fogarty, Balloon catheter
Dr. Arnold Heyman, Bard/Heyman urethral instrument system
Dr. Charles Klieman, Surgical Staplers
Dr. Robert Markison Sailboard hand grip for windsurfing and surgical instruments
Dr. Lloyd Marks, Cardiac patient monitoring detector
Dr. Leo Rubin, Implantable defibrillator combined with a pacemaker

Other Inventors

Ron Ace, Lightweight photochromic eyeglass lenses
Ken Addison, Devices to aid the handicapped
Dr. Sol Aisenberg, Ion assisted deposition of diamond-like thin films
Dr. Paul Burstein, .Rocket motor inspection system
Tom Cannon, Computer kiosk for selecting and printing greeting cards
Bernard Cousino, 8-track tape
Charles Fletcher, The Hovercraft
George Freedman, Sleep apnea control system
Dr. Richard Fuisz, Rapidly dissoluble medicinal dosage unit
Elon Gasper, Speech synthesis with synchronous animation
Charles Hall, Waterbed
Paul Heckel, Card and rack computer metaphor
Dr. A Zeer Hed, Freeze ablation catheter
Anthony Hodges, RSI preventing computer keyboard
Walter Juda, Ion exchange membrane
Martine Kempf, Speech recognition medical control systems
Ron Lesea, Telecommunications equipment and electronic ballasts
Jerome Lemelson, the flexible manufacturing system
Michael Levine, Magistat thermostat, On screen programming used in VCR Plus
Lawrence B. Lockwood, Interactive multimedia information systemin re Lockwood
I. H Houng Loh, non blood clotting surface for human implantable medical devices
Wallace London, Clothes hanger lock for suitcases, London v. Carson Pirie Scott
Edward Lowe, Kitty Litter
E. Cordell Lundahl, Stakhand Hay Handler and other Farm Machinery
Paul MacCready, The Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross airplanes
Jacob Malta, Musical bells Malta v. Schulmerich Carillons
George Margolin, Microfiche readers, folding pocket calculators
Stan Mason, Shaped disposable diapers, microwave cookware,granola bar
Elana Medo White River breast feeding system
Franco Modigliani, credit management system Nobel Laureate
Kary Mullis, Polymerase Chain Reaction, Nobel Laureate
Tod Nesler, Non-fogging goggles for sport and the military.
John Paul, Electronic ballasts
Dr. Richard Pavelle, Method for increasing catalytic efficiency

Bob Polata, Composite masking for high frequency semiconductor devices
Cary Queen, Document comparison system
Ron Riley, automated electrified monorail
Peter Theis, Automated voice processing in re Theis
Coye Vincent, Ultrasonic Bond Meter
Paul Wolstenholme, Self erecting grain storage system

The Intellectual Property Creators Coalition

Abraham Lincoln Patentholders Association, Paul Heckel President
American College of Physician Inventors, Dr. Klieman, President
Donald Banner, Patent Commissioner under President Carter
The Inventors Voice, Steve Gnass, President
National Congress of Inventors Organizations

(Last updated on 10/06/98)