Posts Tagged: "politics"

This increased political exposure across the nation is likely a big reason why Airbnb is increasing its DC lobbying arsenal by hiring former Congressman Vin Weber and the public affairs firm Mercury… Airbnb hosts are given a large say in who gets to stay in their rental accommodations, as is evidenced by the filing of U.S. Patent Application No. 20160098649, entitled Determining Host Preferences for Accommodation Listings. This would protect a computer implemented method of identifying listings sharing a common attribute, determining patterns in host acceptance or rejection of reservation requests and then creating a cluster pattern value which determines whether a new reservation request is likely to be accepted or rejected by the host. Interestingly, this invention is designed to incorporate a host’s “implicit” preferences which “are not easily quantifiable.”

Without immigrants and the influx of knowledge brought by them to our country’s shores, American innovation and the overall economy would look nothing like it does today. The current election cycle, as with many recent ones, has seen a great deal of focus turned towards the issue of immigration reform, with much of the debate centered on 11 million undocumented workers currently in America. But we wanted to take some time to explore how foreigners have been able to contribute to our nation’s spirit of innovation. Surprisingly, we found that some of these inventions encompass products that are about as American as apple pie.

For Cruz his depth of sincere appreciation and awareness of the role patents and private property rights comes from his meager roots, from his work as an attorney in private practice for commercial clients, and working for the people of Texas as their Solicitor General and on cases involving eminent domain and intellectual property. If the 2016 Presidential race were simply a one issue contest Cruz would certainly enjoy a substantial advantage. But since the 2016 race is defined by personality then it is worth noting how much Cruz has in common with Abraham Lincoln, thanks to patents. Among other things, just as Ted Cruz used patent litigation to fund his Senate campaign, Lincoln funded his Congressional and Presidential campaigns on patent lawsuits.

What Kasich doesn’t explain, however, is how he achieved a balanced budget. As part of the Kasich-Clinton deal the budget of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) was raided for additional money to help plug shortfalls elsewhere. The appropriations cap placed on the USPTO for fiscal year 1998 was $691 million, and according to the IPO $199 million was collected but diverted, which means 22.4% of fee collections were taken from the USPTO in FY 1998 and used for other purposes… Republicans, including Kasich, love to lay claim to the Reagan legacy. But President Reagan was a supporter of the patent system. He never would have tolerated raiding the USPTO budget for any reason. We know that because it was President Reagan that demanded a build up of the USPTO as part of his overall strategy to make America great again and compete with the Japanese for technology dominance.

The Medical Innovation Prize Act of 2007, submitted by Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT), would have effectively done away with patent rights for pharmaceutical drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The bill would have allowed anyone in compliance with FDA requirements “to manufacture, distribute, or sell an approved medicine.” The bill says it would have continued to spur innovation by establishing a fund for medical innovation prizes. It would have required the Board of Trustees for the newly created Fund to award prize payments of unspecified amounts for medical innovations relating to a drug, biological product, or manufacturing process. In order to be an eligible award recipient one would have to be the first person to receive market clearance or be the holder of an issued patent.

In 2008 the surrogates did at least increase the emphasis on having some form of post grant challenge procedure in the bill that would pass Congress and be signed into law. Their work began to surface in March 2008 by way of surrogates speaking at public and private events focused on innovation related issues. While the campaigns today may not spend many bytes on patent policy soon enough surrogates will be convening at events around the country to discuss innovation policies. If innovation policies or broader tech issues matter the time to get involved is now. As the field of candidates continues to narrow it will become increasingly more difficult, and more costly, to influence policy.

Donald Trump argued at the New Hampshire debate that our nation’s infrastructure would not happen without eminent domain. While economic development as a justification for eminent domain has been severely criticized, there does not seem to be a similar criticism associated with stripping property rights from patent owners in order to allow technology adopting infringers to distribute what they did not themselves innovate without paying the property owner for the privilege.

Some states have decided that they can’t wait for a federal response on the collection of online sales tax, prompting them to enact their own measures. In Utah, where less than one percent of taxpayers actually pay the use tax they owe the state for Internet retail transactions, some state lawmakers have collaborated on crafting a bill that would give the state more power in collecting sales tax from online retailers, with or without a physical presence within the state. In South Carolina, January 1st of this year brought about the end of a tax break offered to Amazon for building a distribution center in that state. The collection of sales tax from Amazon sales to South Carolina consumers is expected to bring in about $13.8 million in additional tax revenue through 2016, according to projected revenues released by South Carolina’s tax department. The distribution centers built by Amazon serve as the physical in-state nexus which requires it to collect sales tax from South Carolina consumers.

Does the Democratic Presidential contest suggest that voters think that traditional views on patents or copyrights are on the way out and that collectivism is on the rise? The so-called “Napster generation” is now definitely 30 something and kissing 40. Millennials and how they are using the Internet for work, life and politics may show us a shift in compensation for creativity that is rewarding inclusiveness, building a community and a base of customers. This contrasts with the more traditional top down, broadcast marketing coupled with enforcement of longer term royalties. Silicon Valley and Wall Street at least have embraced the former, it seems, given how much people love to value unicorns these days. But in the past as unicorns grew up the market would demand adherence to traditional top down norms – think Twitter, for example, which had few patents of their own until they purchased 900 patents from IBM shortly after going public.

At this point in the presidential cycle it is too early to expect a great deal of substance on issues like patents? The point where patents may come up in the debates will be in these application layer issues of drug pricing, taxes or maybe trade. But even then the discussion will be delicate and nuanced, unless we have a February 2008 situation. Sure litigation gamesmanship (generally and not just patents) remains important and perhaps for reasons not widely appreciated given the recent Supreme Court decisions on class action lawsuits and arbitration issues that have changed the balance of the force. Senator Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and Senator Rick Santorum have already publicly expressed specific views about the Constitution and the patent system. And certainly the Constitution gets referenced a lot at the debates. But are they going to use their finite time at a debate to discuss patents when there is broader interest in guns, terrorism, refugees, wars, and the powers of the president?

Last week in Iowa Hillary Clinton promised to use patents owned by giant technology companies as leverage to get them to pay higher taxes. If you listen to the actual exchange between Clinton and a supporter Clinton agreed that patents should be suspended until companies repatriate foreign profits held in offshore accounts. A rule that tied paying taxes, or repatriation of foreign profits to the United States, to obtaining a patent would almost certainly create an extraordinary disincentive to seek a patent in the United States, which itself would lead to a nearly unimaginable parade of horribles at a time that the U.S. economy is nearly wholly reliant on innovation and technology.

Much of the data security world has been abuzz since a blog post at the digital privacy website DataBreaches.net reported the disconcerting news that the personal information of 191 million voters participating in U.S. elections going back to the year 2000 was made available on the Internet by a party who is yet unknown. These records include voter information which is requested at the time of registration, which in many cases includes home addresses, date of birth, telephone number and state voter identification. Making these voter records available online violates confidentiality restrictions on accessing records put in place by California and other states.

As interesting as the Senate may become when patent reform resurfaces, the dynamic in the House will be fascinating for many reasons. Since patent reform stalled there is a new Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan (R-WI). Speaker Ryan has said he plans to return the House to regular order and allow business to trickle up from members to the full House rather than have legislation forced down from leadership on Members. It is widely known that Goodlatte and Issa continue to want more patent reform and are seeking opportunities to push forward to a vote in the House. Will Speaker Ryan allow the Innovation Act to come to a vote in the House?

The first meeting this week was in Grundy Center, IA, during which a question about patent reform was asked. Grassley answered that he was trying to stop patent trolls, which he described as a person who buys up patents but never intends to build a product, and then sends threatening letters to small businesses demanding thousands of dollars or they will get sued. Notably, he said that it costs our economy $83B per year.

Libertarians believe in property rights and government protection of those rights as one of the few necessary requirements of government. Ownership of property and free markets leads to competitive production and trade of goods, which in turn leads to prosperity for all of society. Intellectual property is property like other forms of property, and so government must protect IP as it protects other forms of property because it too leads to competition and trade and prosperity. Libertarians should encourage a strong patent system and object to any “reforms” that limit intellectual property ownership or introduce more government regulation than is required.