The story about the international community’s dislike of America’s strong intellectual property laws should be an eye-opener for Congress. In her July 7 business article, “European Parliament Nixes Software Patent Law,” Jan Sliva highlighted how the European Parliament overwhelmingly rejected by a vote of 648-14 a bill that “stopped short of the U.S. system that allows patenting of business methods or computer programs.”

Over the past many years there has been a strong but little publicized effort to weaken the American patent system. Our patent system is the crux of innovation worldwide. The health our own economy depends upon our strong patent laws.

So why are multinational companies, including Microsoft, IBM, and Caterpillar, as well as the National Association of Manufacturers, attempting to weaken the U.S. Patent System? And why are many members of Congress in agreement with the concept of harmonizing our system with Europe’s and Japan’s at the expense of jobs, creativity and innovation in America? Who knows why? But it’s certainly un-American!

The Patent Reform Act of 2005, sponsored by Representatives Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Howard Berman (D-CA), would shock many of their constituents and all Americans if they knew the details of the bill. The bill’s most controversial provision is easy to understand: it advocates replacing our current first-to-invent standard with the European first-to-file model. The first-to-file system would no longer reward American inventors for their original ideas, designs and years of hard work. Instead, large companies – even foreign companies – that somehow learn of an idea that was not theirs to begin with could file before the actual inventor and claim the patent rights. Many of my colleagues don’t have the financial resources to prepare a patent application as quickly as IBM, for example, much less win the race to the Patent Office.

Aside from being poor policy, it is clearly unconstitutional. Article I. Section 8. The Congress shall have the Power…To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. So the patent system is to grant an exclusive right to authors and inventors to make, use, and sell their own discovery without infringement from others. The patent is protected as private property.

The proposed legislation is chalk-full of provisions that will greatly benefit deep-pocketed multinational companies. Yet will harm domestic independent inventors and small and medium sized businesses across the country.