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Hot Property
The
Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization
By Pat Choate - Author of Agents of Influence
Pub. Date: April 26, 2005
Excerpt
Kirkus
Reviews
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Once I started Hot Property I couldn't put the book down.
Reading all day on
and off to the exclusion of other things which needed to be done.
The story is
stunning and compelling. America, in fact all of the West is in
deep
trouble if we don't start addressing these issues very aggressively.
Failure to act will send us down the same path as Rome.
I could not help but find it ironic that the very companies who are
well
known for their predatory practices against independent inventors
are being
preyed on globally themselves. My first reaction was that they
deserve
this. But upon reflection I changed my mind.
In 1990 I left a subsidiary of Sun Oil to pursue my inventions.
By 1993 I
had achieved commercial success but was only able to collect royalties
on
less than ten percent of the products incorporating my invention.
I had to fight
an endless stream of intellectual property thieves. The first
was Yaskawa,
then a division of Thyssen, followed by Mitsubishi, General Motors,
Rockwell's Allen Bradley, and a host of others.
But I was making a living, and prospering to the point that I was able
to
devote much of my time to community service for the past decade.
As a
result of my experiences I founded the Professional Inventors Alliance
in
1993 and in early 1995 brought many of those inventors into the
patent
reform fight which is described in chapter nine of Hot Property.
Soon after
I started what is now www.InventorEd.org.
Over the last five years the core business of my company, Riley &
Associates, Inc. which markets the monorail control products I
invented
dropped rapidly. It is only my other business activities which
have allowed
me to continue.
About five years ago I exported product to both India and China.
I had
visions of a growing business. In each case only a small
quantity of
product was shipped, and I never received another order from either
country.
Then one of my major licensees in the automation industry filed
bankruptcy,
costing me a quarter of my annual revenues. They reorganized and
I
eventually did receive payment a year later. But their long term
health is
questionable, and if they fail it will cost me dearly. The cause
of their
failure is detailed in chapter five "Japan's Way" of Hot
Property. In fact
America's automation industry is in a shambles.
I responded to this by shifting my consulting business to the medical
industry. I have found ample business in that industry. But I
can see that
this may not last, for they are also suffering, losing business to
none
other than China. And since so much of the manufacturing is
going to China much
of the automation business is also moving there.
While lobbying the patent reform issue I had numerous meetings with
the
United States Trade Representative (USTR). These meetings involved former
Patent Commissioner Don Banner and several other notable people.
The two
USTR
staff who were present were Joseph Papovich and Ira Shapiro (General
Counsel). At one of the meetings Mr. Shapiro was explaining to
me the
difficulties of negotiating with the Japanese. He described the
process as
being like peeling an onion, that there was always another layer.
After considering this for a few moments I replied that the person
peeling
the onion was crying the whole time and that reply drew
considerable
laughter. Granted that he laughter was of the nervous variety.
I also
learned in the process that America's intellectual property and most
economic issues were routinely traded away to get other concessions.
Hot
Property details how our government is squandering our economic
interests
and our future. The story told in Hot Property is consistent
with my
experiences both as a business owner and during seven years of lobbying
these
issues in Washington, DC.
If we are realistic we must recognize that we are all in the same
boat, big
and small business alike. And we must recognize that all
developed
countries are being similarly victimized. It is long past time
that big
business recognizes that independent inventors can be part of their
salvation, and time that independent inventors learn to have
reasonable
expectations. Working together we could return America to its
former glory.
Failure to do so will surely lead to rapid decline of the West.
"Hot Property: The stealing of ideas in an age of
globalization" is a fast
paced and interesting book which shows us the history of how
some
developing countries are stealing us blind. It teaches us how
Japan copied
the way Germany stole and manipulated their way to control many
industries
on a global basis and how China, India, and a handful of other
countries are
now following in their footsteps.
Everyone who is in government, intellectual property, business, and
even the
general public should read this book. We cannot stop
globalization and even
if we could we probably should not. But we should make sure that
developing
countries earn their prosperity by building their own economy and not
allow
them to appropriate our knowledge base.
Ronald J. Riley
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