Posts Tagged: "Federalist Society"

Iancu and Kappos: TRIPS IP Waiver Proposal Will Kill More People Than It Saves

A webinar hosted on Tuesday, January 12, by The Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project featured former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Directors Andrei Iancu and David Kappos, as well as Duke University Professor of Law and former USPTO Administrator of the Office of External Affairs Arti Rai, discussing the proposal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to waive IP rights under the Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement for certain COVID-19 technologies. While all three panelists agreed that the IP waiver discussion has become a distraction that will not solve the fundamental problems, Iancu and Kappos were especially passionate that the precedent set by the U.S. government’s decision to back the proposal could do very real harm, rather than good.

Patent Rights: A Spark or Hindrance for the Economy?

One just thinks of the fact that five years ago Blackberry was the industry standard, dominant forever, and now it is basically exposed to ridicule because virtually it’s dropped to third or fourth on the distribution list. You look at the rate of technological progress between then and now, it just doesn’t seem in any way, shape or form to have been slowed down so it seems to me that in face of rapid technological advance to say that the current system is a disaster is a mistake.