A COUNTRY OF IDEAS

We Americans as a country have prospered above all nations due to many factors, but one of those factors has been our ability to be innovative. I feel that that ability has been passed down from our forefathers. The men and women that settled this country were willing to endure many hardships to have a better life. For them it was a matter of survival to be innovative. In our history we have had individuals like Thomas Edison; while he is best known for inventing the light bulb, it is only one invention among many.

We Americans are the only people that have ever been able to send men to the moon, and we were able to do that decades ago. The only other nation that was able to come close to that accomplishment was the Soviet Union. I recently read that the United States has produced the overwhelming majority of the world's great inventions. The U.S. system produces more important inventions than the rest of the world combined. The reason for our success is the patent system in our country.

In America the inventor owns his invention. Other countries do not respect inventors' rights granted by the U.S. Patent Office. Inventors are granted "the exclusive right" to their inventions "for limited times" (usually about 18 years) after which the invention goes into the public domain. This has enabled average people with good ideas to profit from them without someone else stealing their idea. Not only do we have to worry about people in this country stealing ideas, but also we have to worry about other countries doing it. Many of the things we take for granted are built in countries like China, one such thing is a VCR. It is sad that we Americans invented the VCR but not one is built in this country.

We need to protect our country from enemies across the globe, but we also need to protect our ideas from other people in other countries. There is a bill before Congress that could reduce the legal protection for our inventors, is the Patent Reform Act of 2007. This bill does nothing to require or induce other countries to respect U.S. patents. In any business the success or failure depends upon the ability to have good, innovative ideas. If we allow those ideas to be stolen, the thieves will prosper instead of us.  

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