From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 20:09:07 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Patent Giveaway Bill - House vote could be week of April 14th
Message-ID: <v0302097eaf774a20c9cc@[139.167.130.246]>
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Got this one off one of my favorite um, hydrophobic, right-wing lists.

Actually, I *like* the idea of adopting the Japanese model, a patent system
which was designed from the gitgo to strip technology from the original
patentholders and accellerate its transfer to people who could implement it
faster.

Evolution in action, and all that. Of course, I expect that, <duck>
geodesic markets </duck> will reward people who come up with new stuff --
and not people who control old stuff -- by exponentially depreciating old
information as fast as it's created.

"Piracy" being the most efficient form of information transfer on a
ubiquitous network, and, with so-called watermarking, cryptolopes, etc.,
only being able to tell you who your copy was "pirated" from, the first
copy of anything will be auctioned off dear, and subsequent copies will be
sold dear in radiating secondary markets. Jason Cronk just wrote a paper on
this, based on his rump-session talk at FC97. I don't have the URL handy,
but his email address is <mailto:rjasonc@purple.reddesign.com>.

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

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Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 11:58:35 -0500
To: eagle@eagleforum.org
From: Eagle Forum <eagle@eagleforum.org>
Subject: Patent Giveaway Bill - House vote could be week of April 14th
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                 PATENT GIVEAWAY BILL

         House vote could be week of April 14th


April 11, 1997

 Phone or fax your Congressman (202) 225-3121 and urge
 him to vote NO on H.R. 400, which is misnamed the Patent
 Improvement Act but should be called the Patent Giveaway
 bill or the Ron Brown Sellout Legacy. This bill would
 write into law Ron Brown's Commerce Department news
 release of August 16, 1994, which promised the Japanese
 that we will change our patent law to acquiesce in the
 demands made by the Japan Patent Association in its
 written statement of September 1993 (which called our
 patent system "unsatisfactory" and demanded changes).
 That statement is impudent and insulting to Americans.

 H.R. 400 would transform the U.S. Patent Office into a
 private corporation that could accept bribes for the
 issuing of patents. Of course, the bill doesn't use the
 nasty word bribes; it just says that the Patent Office
 "may accept monetary gifts or donations of services, or
 of real, personal, or mixed property, in order to carry
 out the functions of the Office." With all the recent
 scandals about Asian money used to influence U.S.
 policy, this would be a terrible mistake.

 The entire text of H.R. 400 is a sellout to the Japanese
 demands. This bill would order all patent applications
 to be made public 18 months after the application is
 filed, whether or not the inventor has yet been granted
 a patent. This dramatic change from our traditional
 treatment of patents would be a grievous injustice to
 the individual inventor because it would allow
 foreigners and multinationals to use their enormous
 resources to steal the inventor's idea and beat him into
 production.

 H.R. 400 would loosen up the "reexamination" of U.S.
 patents already issued and allow foreign and domestic
 corporations to participate in the process after paying
 a "reexamination fee." H.R. 400 even specifies that the
 board of directors of the new private patent office
 shall include persons "with substantial background and
 achievement in corporate finance and management." That
 puts the multinationals in the driver's seat to ride
 roughshod over the rights of individual inventors.

 Instead of ratifying the Ron Brown sellout deal,
 Congress should stand up for one of our most important
 constitutional rights - the right of inventors to have,
 for limited times, "the exclusive right to their . . .
 discoveries." This unique provision in the U.S.
 Constitution (Article 1, Section 8) marked a profound
 turning point in world history; it started the marvelous
 series of American inventions that have raised our
 standard of living and built America into an industrial
 super power.

 H.R. 400 invites Asian money to diminish a precious
 American constitutional right. It is a scandal that
 Congress cannot afford to be involved in. Vote NO on
 H.R. 400.


See our sample letter to Congress:
http://www.eagleforum.org/conglet/1997/patents.html
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-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
Lesley Stahl: "You mean *anyone* can set up a web site and compete
               with the New York Times?"
Andrew Kantor: "Yes."  Stahl:  "Isn't that dangerous?"
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/