he more important reason that it establishes the date when inventors relinquish exclusive rights. The issue is clearly presented by the example of inventor Gordon Gould, whose patents for laser technology were issued 20 years after he filed a patent application.
Individuals, or non-institutionalized inventors, however, do not fare well under the GATT agreement. They prefer the "old" system, which provided for protection for 17 years once a patent is granted, and which term could be longer than the 20 years under WTO rules, which provide that patents will commence when a patent is filed. For inventors, whose patents move from filing to approval at a slow pace, it could mean lost royalties. Moreover, the intervening delays present additional risks: "In the years it takes to get a patent approved . . . anyone with an ability to get into the files can take your idea. The passage of GATT will make that much easier" (LaFemina 1). Consequently, a coalition of small-inventors have decided to lobby the Congress with, what they believe is, a GATT-acceptable compromise that would rewrite the enabling laws to provide that applications pending for more than three years would receive the current 17-year protection, and in all other cases the longer time frame would apply. Having heard these objections, the Congress has said it will reconsider the patent-terms issue during its 1995 session.
Other GATT changes related to intellectual property include: placing tighter controls on the boot-legging of sound and video recordings; extending the use-it-or-lose-it provisions of trademark law from two years to three years before a trademark is considered abandoned; shortening to 20 years from the filing date, the protection given to an invention within an invention, which are known as secondary patents, and which had been added to the original patent to extend to 30 years in hopes of a market developing; and publishing of patent filings after 18 month...