Posts Tagged: "Presidential Campaign"

Trump, no stranger to lawsuits himself, can now count U.S. district courts as the latest venue where his position could be on the decline. A suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (N.D. Ill.) lists Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., Mike Pence and a series of 10 Does as defendants in a copyright infringement action. At the center of the lawsuit is a picture of a bowl of Skittles, which was used for a now-infamous metaphor for the Syrian refugee crisis. The copyright infringement action was brought by David Kittos, a British photographer, who claims that the Skittles tweet published by Donald Trump Jr. used a copyright protected image created by Kittos.

Clinton’s tech agenda revolves around five main points that she hopes will lead to American dominance in research and development as well as overall innovation. First, she’s pledged to devote resources to educational innovations that will position U.S. workers well for the well-paying tech jobs of today and the near future. Second, she’s pushing for major infrastructure upgrades that she argues will bring broadband Internet access to a much wider audience. Her third point focuses on protecting American tech export interests to countries abroad. Her fourth agenda point discusses a framework by which concepts of the open Internet as well as personal privacy can be balanced. Finally, her fifth point hones in on the ways that technology can make government agencies more efficient and effective.

Clinton’s proposal for accomplishing this goal would be twofold: (1) to reduce excessive patent litigation through additional patent reform; and (2) strengthening the operational capacity of the USPTO by allowing the USPTO to keep and spend all the fees it collects. “You are looking at a 14-page detailed document. There is a lot of thought put behind this agenda,” explained Todd Dickinson, former Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office under President Bill Clinton who was reached by telephone for comment. Not surprisingly, Dickinson has has been an advisor to the campaign regarding intellectual property matters. “Other campaigns will be hard pressed to match the depth and thoughtfulness of these proposals.”

This extra attention on Wisconsin, coupled with Paul Ryan being the dream candidate for those who favor an open Republican Convention, provides us with a somewhat manufactured, yet novel and non-obvious opportunity to examine Ryan’s views on patents. Oddly, much like those of candidate Kasich, Ryan’s views have been in favor of fee diversion, which have been identified by former heads of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office as the single biggest problem that has or will face the Office. Indeed, the mentality that leads Donald Trump to exalt the virtues of eminent domain for the greater good isn’t all that different from the thinking that must be required when Paul Ryan (and Kasich too) decide it is appropriate to siphon off user fees from the USPTO.

On the Republican side, front-runner Donald Trump, whose inability to be stopped by his own rhetoric has proven to be a hallmark of his campaign, has said himself that he is “changing” on this issue, at least where skilled talent is concerned. Trump has been on both sides of the H-1B visa issue, which makes it difficult to know what he really believes and what policy might become during a Trump Administration.

Simply stated, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) did not deserve the F foisted on him by the Engine study or amplified by the reporting by Wired and Ars Technica. Notwithstanding the inexplicable F given to Senator Cruz, the biggest error in the “report card” related to something that never happened. Senator Marco Rubio was given a B based on his vote in favor of the America Invents Act (AIA). The problem is that Senator Rubio missed that vote on the AIA and is also on record saying that had he been present he would have voted against the AIA. Indeed, there are many other inaccuracies and misleading statements that collectively left us wondering if the scoring of this “report card” intentionally misleads the public and reinforces the stereotype that the tech community only likes Democrats.

Just when you thought the race for the White House couldn’t get any more unpredictable and bizarre, the 2012 Republican Nominee rebuked the current Republican frontrunner, Donald J. Trump. Romney won’t rule out a possibility of accepting the mantle if drafted at the Republican Convention, although he says he will endorse one of the remaining three candidates at some point. There is always the possibility that Romney is trying to keep the door open for someone else, perhaps his former running mate and current Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI). Given the Romney turn of events we thought it might be appropriate to take a look at what we know about Romney and Ryan as it pertains to patent and innovation policy.

Now it is time for Trump to call for a vigorous debate on the Trans Pacific Partnership Treaty (“TPP”) to demonstrate his expertise on matters of strategic national and international economic importance. The TPP, now pending before Congress, makes many changes to the US patent system and some in Congress such as Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Rob Portman (R-OH) have already expressed opposition because of how it weakens American intellectual property rights. Trump should challenge Senators Rubio and Ted Cruz to debate the TPP with their Senate colleagues now rather than wait for the lame duck Congress, when many politicians newly unaccountable to voters could do strange things.

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.

The U.S. cannot win a trade war based on raising tariffs. Rather than engage in a trade war that the U.S. can’t win, why not embrace smarter manufacturing policies? when we outsource manufacturing we are handing over the follow-on innovation that will take place on the factory floor. Therefore, by outsourcing manufacturing to the lowest bidder abroad not only have we destroyed the working middle class in America, but we are also increasingly turning over our last economic advantage – our intellectual property. How long will the United States be able to remain one of the world’s leading economies if we continue to outsource that follow-on innovation that takes place through the manufacturing processes?