New Patent Bill Destroys American Jobs
 |
Written by Gene Quinn President & Founder of IPWatchdog, Inc. Patent Attorney, Reg. No. 44,294 Zies, Widerman & Malek E-mail | Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn Posted: Mar 3, 2009 @ 5:22 pm 
|
|
U.S. Reps. Don Manzullo (R-IL) and Mike Michaud (D-ME) today said the latest patent reform bill introduced in the House and Senate this afternoon would actually weaken intellectual property protections for American manufacturers and put hundreds of thousands more Americans on the unemployment lines.
Manzullo and Michaud led a bipartisan coalition of 64 Members of Congress last fall fighting for major changes to preserve American ingenuity and jobs in last year’s flawed “patent reform” bill. The bill died in the Senate last fall and was reintroduced in both chambers this afternoon as the Patent Reform Act of 2009. Manzullo and Michaud issued the following joint statement:
STATEMENT
“This year’s version of the so-called patent reform bill again weakens America’s strong patent system, making it easier for foreign companies to take our ideas and our jobs. By diminishing the damage awards in patent infringement cases, this bill would encourage intellectual property theft by foreign competitors, putting 298,000 American manufacturing jobs at risk and curtailing U.S. research and development spending by $66 billion, according to a recent economic study. It makes no sense to us why we would threaten the jobs of hundreds of thousands of Americans at a time when our people are in desperate need of jobs.
“In this difficult time for U.S. manufacturing, we hope the authors of this bill will abandon this contentious approach and instead work with us on patent reform legislation that strengthens American jobs rather than puts them at risk. Let’s tackle consensus issues like Patent and Trademark Office efficiency, patent pendency and patent quality. Let’s work together to reform the system, rather than take actions like diminishing the value of damages that could obliterate it.”
About the Author
 |
Eugene R. Quinn, Jr.
President & Founder of IPWatchdog, Inc. US Patent Attorney (Reg. No. 44,294) Zies, Widerman & Malek B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Rutgers University J.D., Franklin Pierce Law Center L.L.M. in Intellectual Property, Franklin Pierce Law Center Send me an e-mail  |
Gene Quinn is a US Patent Attorney, law professor and the founder of IPWatchdog.com. He is also a principal lecturer in the top patent bar review course in the nation, which helps aspiring patent attorneys and patent agents prepare themselves to pass the patent bar exam. Known by many as “The IPWatchdog,” Gene started the widely popular intellectual property website IPWatchdog.com in 1999, and since that time the site has had millions of unique visitors. Gene has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the LA Times, CNN Money, NPR and various other newspapers and magazines worldwide. He represents individuals, small businesses and start-up corporations. As an electrical engineer with a computer engineering focus his specialty is electronic and computer devices, Internet applications, software and business methods.
Related posts (automatically generated):
- House Judiciary Committee Balks at Senate Patent Bill
Talk about turn of events. Earlier today I posted an article regarding how patent reform legislation is not certain because it is conceivable that there will not be enough votes for the bill on the floor of the Senate. As I was writing that post the House Judiciary Committee was... - Patent Reform Will Undermine US Tech Competitiveness
PRESS RELEASE: Suffern, N.Y., March 4, 2009 – General Patent Corporation (GPC), a leading patent licensing and enforcement company providing assistance to small inventors and entrepreneurs throughout the United States, announced its disappointment with the latest Congressional initiatives to reform America’s patent laws. With the nation expecting more from the... - Coalition Statement on Patent Reform Legislation
The Chairman of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, Gary Griswold, released the following statement after the introduction of The Patent Reform Act of 2009, in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. The bills introduced in the House and Senate today contain several provisions that did not... - BIO Expresses Some Concern with House Patent Reform
BIO also is concerned about the inclusion of broader prior user rights in the House bill, and believes that this issue, coupled with the harmful inter partes review changes, could set back efforts to pass meaningful patent reform this year by undermining the broad coalition of American innovators currently supporting... - Senate Votes 93-5 to End Debate on Patent Reform, Vote Imminent
The United States Senate voted 93 to 5 earlier this evening to end debate on patent reform, which should set up a vote on H.R. 1249 in the coming days. Debate on patent reform is now over in the Senate. In the coming days the Senate will vote on and... - Uncertain Future for Patent Reform Legislation
As of today, legislative patent reform efforts are working their way through Congress. We are further along the road to legislative reform than at any point in time over the last 4 years, but the ultimate outcome is still not certain. The Senate Judiciary Committee has reported out a version... - House Patent Reform Bill is in Need of Reform, BIO to Oppose
BIO has consistently praised House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) for his introduction of a comprehensive patent reform bill similar to the bill adopted by the U.S. Senate earlier this month by a nearly unanimous vote. Unfortunately, given the addition of the Goodlatte supplemental examination amendment, added to the...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Gene,
Reps Manzullo and Michaud are my new heroes. That at least some Democrats, along with Republicans, see the potential problems with this new version of so-called “patent law reform” as potentially costing American jobs and undercutting American global competitiveness is fair warning that this bill benefits the corporate Goliaths, not the innovative Davids. The corporate Goliaths certainly aren’t going to create the jobs needed to bring American out of the current recession, but are (at least those in the banking and financial services world that created this mess) instead simply “sucking” money out of the so-called “stimulus” packages passed by the same Congressional characters who are supporting this new version of so-called “patent law reform.”
Again, look at who is supporting this bill, the Coalition for Patent Fairness, a truly oxymoronic title for an organization that could care less if America’s patent system goes down the toilet. CFPR, which whines continually about how the current American patent system is stacked against it, isn’t going to create American jobs, but will simply increase the dominant position of the large computer/IT companies (who will continually cut American jobs). Also, could it be that these Congressional characters supporting this new version of so-called “patent law reform” pocketed funds from the Coalition for Patent Fairness? Again, this new version of so-called “patent law reform” will simply stamp out the Davids of Innovation, and with it the hope for job creation and global competitiveness in America. Anyone who believes otherwise is living in a dream world.
Reps. Manzullo and Michaud are likely getting their numbers from a study put out by the anti patent reform group Innovation Alliance, by Case Western economist Scott Shane, and focuses on the effect of the proposed amendment to patent damages. It’s worth considering the effect of lower patent damages in a change in policy, but I don’t put much stock in this analysis. Julian Sanchez’s excellent analysis of the patent reform bill at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/patent-reform-bill-reintroduced-to-tech-industry-cheers.ars dismantles Shane’s study, noting the fallacies in (1) assuming that any increase in patent damages automatically increases the value of U.S. companies, without accounting for the savings in reduced awards paid by accused infringers, and (2) assuming that a reduction in patent damages will cause a dollar for dollar reduction in the value of U.S. patents (in fact anticipated damages are only one factor in the complex formulas used to value intellectual property).
And the spin battles commence…
last checked, the “anti patent reform group” label belonged NOT to the group of which Scott Shane wrote for (which I believe also include MAPI), but to the group that Jaideep seemingly defends, the oxymoronic Coalition for Patent Fairness.
At least I have a viewpoint to check out regarding the Shane study. Thanks Jaideep.
Good point, Breadcrumbs. “Anti-patent reform group” is a pejorative that I should not have applied to Innovation Alliance.
Oh, c’mon Jaideep, at least be honest – doesn’t everyone know that Innovation Alliance is Pro-Patent and the Coalition for Patent Fairness (which includes HP Marketing Co. – slogan “Where Innovation is Rebadged!”) is Anti-Patent?
Basically, the CPF would rather be able to copy any design and compete on economies of scale, distribution channels, etc. than have a strong patent system… effectively forfeiting *all* American IP (dag, even Pharma?) for the sake of some immediate shareholder profits… seems like a good way to bring America down to its knees.
Of course, CPF profits have nothing with promoting progress of Science and the Useful Arts. It’s just a redistribution of wealth and technology away from small companies… and giving away America’s IP to the world – which I guess is important to some.
There are better solutions to the problems with software and business method patents (which CPF companies are arguably more responsible for than anyone else… have they essentially reaped what they have sown?) than gutting Pharma protection.