Zoe Lofgren: “Mr. Speaker, the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 revamps our patent system so it is ready to meet the…”

“Mr. Speaker, the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 revamps our patent system so it is ready to meet the challenge of our Nation's high-tech industry and the global economy. We had a spirited debate in the last Congress on our predecessor bill, H.R. 400. While H.R. 400 did pass the House, it died in the Senate. This year I believe we made the changes that meet the concerns raised during the floor debate in committee. The bill was first published as a committee print so everyone could make known their objections and so final details could be carefully considered before the bill's formal introduction. Now that the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property has favorably reported the result of all that effort, as has the full committee, I encourage support of the bill. It requires early publication of our foreign competitors' technology, it protects American investors from unscrupulous invention promotors, it protects domestic manufacturers and jobs from late-filed and issuing patents, half of which are foreign owned, it provides an inexpensive and efficient system for challenging improvidently granted patents, and it gives the Patent and Trademark Office operational flexibility that it needs.”