John Conyers: “Mr. Chairman, our hearings have revealed, and this is why we support the bill, it showed that 300 foreign companies were…”

“Mr. Chairman, our hearings have revealed, and this is why we support the bill, it showed that 300 foreign companies were able to come into this country and game the process, so the previous speaker who says that this is all just about domestic, well, it is about foreign companies coming onto our turf, sir, and taking our patents. That is what we are trying to stop. So to say that it does not involve foreign companies, it involves 300 foreign companies, according to our hearings. In one case, a British pharmaceutical company was so effective at the submarining game that the United States competitor had to relocate its operations abroad to be able to produce a competing project. So we have our companies going out of the United States to come back in because of the submarine system, and some say this is just a domestic problem. It is not. It is a national, international problem. Now, the submarine patents which we claim are now corrected on both sides, I would point out that there was one American, and this is not a foreign entrepreneur, was able to get $500 million in royalties. For doing what? For simply delaying for 35 years in some instances, the prosecution of a patent, and then suing other manufacturers who, in the meantime, not knowing about it, started using the process.”