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July 23 1999
The Honorable Bill McCullum
P.O. Box 532015
Orlando, FL 32853-9764
Dear Congressman McCullum
This is to suggest a campaign issue for your campaign for the U.S.
Senate. The issue involves the payment of Maintenance Fees to the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office to keep issued patents in force.
Following is a quote from a letter which I received from Congressman
Porter Goss in 1997:
"The development of new products has been one of the hallmarks of
American business and a source of national pride. A fundamental
principle of our free-enterprise system is that inventors have a right
to receive fair compensation for the products they create. People like
Thomas Edison and Henry Ford brought revolutionary change to our world.
The safeguard for these ideas has been our system of Patents and
Copyrights."
I agree with this principle and have been practicing Patent law for 38
years. Unfortunately, enactment of Public Law 96-517, December 12, 1980,
established the requirement to pay maintenance fees for applications
filed after that date. Enactment of Public Law 96-517, in my opinion,
has had the greatest negative impact on invention and innovation and is
patently unconstitutional.
On the one hand, the Government grants exclusive rights for seventeen
years to an invention to an inventor in exchange for publishing the
invention to the whole world. On the other hand, the government takes
away these Constitutionally guaranteed rights for non-payment of a
"Maintenance Fee". 'This, in my opinion, is an
unconstitutional taking of private property (intellectual property)
without compensation.
As a Patent Attorney, filing a patent application and getting a patent
issued to a client is a very rewarding and satisfying feeling. When I
receive a notice from the Patent Office that one of'my patents has
expired for non-payment of the maintenance fee, I am heartbroken-like
losing a child which I have reared. If the Patent Office needs the
additional revenue that they receive from the maintenance fees for
operating costs, they must find another means which will not destroy
property rights. For example, President Clinton's FY 1998 budget
requested only $27 million of the $119 million which the PTO collects in
the patent fee surcharge account. The remaining $92 million in
patent fees enriched the general treasury. Thus, the Administration is
enriching the treasury and increasing the surplus by unfairly and
unconstitutionally taxing inventors and innovators.
Inventors are constantly being scammed by invention development
companies who promise to market their inventions. It is also difficult
to raise risk capital to develop and market inventions. It may take as
long as five to seven years before an inventor can actually make a
profit from the invention. They don't need the Government to take away
the only protection that they may have from domestic and foreign
competition. Canceling the right to exclude others from making, using,
or selling the invention opens the U.S. market to foreign manufacturers
such as China, Taiwan and Japan.
To further exacerbate the matter, the Patent Office has provided the
Communist...Patent Office with the entire U.S. patent data base on
magnetic tape. China has been violating our copyrights and
counterfeiting U.S. intellectual property, thus robbing our U.S.
inventors and copyright owners. Why do we continue to give this patent
information to China when it is running a trade deficit of over $30
billion with the U.S.? Canceling U.S. Patent rights will exonerate. the
Chinese from the charge of counterfeiting and would permit them to
export infringing products to the U.S.
I am a member of the Edison Inventors Association, an organization of
and for independent inventors and is based in Fort Myers. The
organization seeks to stimulate innovative culture through teaching of
the inventive process to people of all ages in the community and school
programs. As a member, I want to express my strong opposition to the
collection of maintenance fees. I expressed my views at the last meeting
held on July 21, 1999 and advised the members that I was writing this
letter on the subject. If you support my views on repealing Public Law
96-517, I can suggest your appearance at one of our meetings, which are
held on the third Wednesday of each month, at the Edison museum in Fort
Myers.
Our country has a proud tradition of fostering inventions going back to
framing of our Constitution which enabled Congress to pass laws in 1790
granting rights to inventors (Article 1, Section 8). This creativity has
been a principal foundation of our economic strength. One cannot even
begin to estimate how many jobs and how much wealth are derivative from
the invention of one man, Thomas Alva Edison, whose name our association
carries. One major difference between Thomas Edison and our members is
that he did not have to worry about his 1,000+ patents expiring for
non-payment of maintenance fees. Based on the current maintenance fee
structure, Thomas Edison would have paid $5,750,000 in maintenance fees
on 1,000 patents. How many of his inventions would have reached the
marketplace if he was burdened by the payment of maintenance fees?
As you can see, I am very concerned about the unfair burden on the
individual inventors. There is no political organization to look out for
their interests. When Senator Dole retired, inventors and innovators
lost their greatest supporter. The Bayh-Dole Bill and the Technology
Transfer Act were the most significant pieces of legislation protecting
inventor's rights. I testified on the Technology Transfer Act and helped
develop the Defense Procurement Reform Act~
Inventors and Innovators need a new Champion. I sincerely hope that you
will be the one. I am providing copies of this letter to three other
potential champions, Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Dole, Senator
Orrin Hatch, and Congressman John Kasich for their support.
I will be in Orlando from August 15-17 and would like to meet with you
or one of your staff to further discuss this issue.
Sincerely,
Frank A. Lukasik
COPIES: Elizabeth Dole; Senator Orrin Hatch; Congressman John Kasich |
