Posts Tagged: "US Economy"

In this installment we start out talking about Judge Michel’s work for Senator Arlen Specter and how today there seems to be a slow and steady decline in the checks and balances intended to be a part of the federal system. This lead us into talking about the Founding Fathers and how they viewed intellectual property, and patent in particular, as critically important. We discussed how the Patent Office used to be held in such esteem by the Founding Fathers and many generations, and how that seems to be a relic of the past. We also discussed how Judge Michel would like to become a public nuisance and troublemaker as he attempts to proselytize for the patent system and a more responsible federal government.

Earlier today the Wall Street Journal gave front page space to a story relating to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Widely regarded as one of the “papers of record” in the United States, one might expect that the Wall Street Journal had brought its considerable clout to an important issue plaguing our time, such as an horribly under funded Patent Office that is holding innovation hostage, costing America perhaps millions of jobs. NO! Don’t get me wrong, every tabloid should have front page news story about pot, medical marijuana and have an image of a VW bus over the tag “the Canny Bus,” as the Journal did earlier today. Call me crazy, but I expected more from the Wall Street Journal.

Truth be told, it would be enough for Congress to just (1) stop siphoning off money from the USPTO through fee diversion; (2) grant the USPTO fee setting authority; and (3) stand out of the way. So my message to Congress would be this: put the pocketbook down, slowly step back and raise your hands over your head so we can see them!

Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) David Kappos announced today that the USPTO’s draft Strategic Plan for fiscal years (FY) 2010-2015 is posted for public review and comment. The draft 2010-2015 Strategic Plan sets out the USPTO’s mission-focused strategic goals: to optimize patent quality and timeliness; to optimize trademark quality and timeliness; and to provide global and domestic leadership to improve intellectual property (IP) policy, protection, and enforcement worldwide.

I have wondered out loud why we don’t have more of a bounce coming off this Great Recession. Certainly the historical dysfunctionality of the Patent Office prior to Director Kappos has something to do with that. It seems to me that open source has also lead many otherwise capable individuals to turn away from innovating. They are not looking for paradigm shifting open spaces and instead toward copying, or simply being blissfully ignorant about whether they are advancing or simply reinventing what others have already invented. The march forward has ceased in part due to the Patent Office backlog and due to an infatuation with open source and reinventing the wheel.

A packed room of at least 200 individuals, including the newly retired Chief Judge Paul Michel, former USPTO Director Q. Todd Dickinson, former USPTO Director Bruce Lehman and others listened to Kappos give an impassioned speech about how innovation can create jobs, how the Patent Office is unfortunately continuing to hold jobs hostage due to a staggering backlog of pending patent applications and how American economic security depends upon development of a comprehensive national IP strategy. I have heard Kappos talk about the job creating power of innovation and the role the USPTO can and should play, but there was something different about his speech today.

The reality is that unless and until Congress steps up to the plate and does something, which seems extraordinarily unlikely, the Patent Office will be left to attempt to piecemeal together solutions. So while no one solution can or will solve all of the problems plaguing the patent system, if cascading solutions are employed at least some applicants can be helped and at least some applications can be accelerated. Of course, the name of the game today is job creation, so I propose a creative way to accelerate patent applications out of order upon proper showing that jobs will be created, and focus my suggestions on those companies that are most likely to create jobs; namely those 5 years or younger and with 99 or fewer employees.

If we can spend trillions in a failed effort couldn’t we spend a billion or two in an effort that is virtually guaranteed to succeed? I say for every $1 trillion wasted we should spend at least $1 billion on things that will work. By my estimates that means $4 billion more for the Patent Office. Not being a greedy guy I am happy to take that in four equal installments of $1 billion over a 4 year period. For those who are math adverse, that would mean the USPTO budget for FY 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 would be whatever they collect plus $1 billion, which for FY 2011 would likely be in the neighborhood of about $3.2 billion.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, painted a bleak picture of the future of the US economy over the next decade. The reality he paints is altogether true, unfortunate and extremely unnecessary. He concludes that “those who have lost their jobs to foreign outsourcing or labor-replacing technologies are unlikely ever to get them back. And they have little hope of finding new jobs that pay as well.” This may be true, but I know that it doesn’t have to be that way. The outsourcing of jobs is largely in violation of US export laws and that seems to me to demonstrate the reckless disregard for the American worker rampant in Washington, DC. The US government is not doing anything to enforce US export laws on the books and stop outsourcing that is in violation of US law.

Submarine patents are not ever likely going to be the problem that they once were prior to the publication of patent applications at 18 months and prior to the change in patent term. On June 8, 1995 the term for a US patent changed from 17 years from issuance to 20 years from filing. There is still an opportunity to obtain additional patent term, for example where the Patent Office interjects unnecessary delay into the process, but it is unrealistic to think that patents will remain pending unknown for decades, which was frequently possible and how Lemelson masterfully manipulated the system, within the rules of course. But the TiVo patent was pending for a decade, unknown and secret. That should not be able to happen and should justifiably cause an alarm.

Picking up on this theme and focusing on things that at first glance seem incredibly obvious but must not be at all obvious given that those who are exceptionally smart can’t figure them out, I thought with tax season right around the corner it might be worthwhile to explore method of stimulating the economy by cutting taxes. I am sure there are other pieces of prior art, even some pieces of enabling prior art, or come to think of it wildly successful and unimaginably enabling prior art, but I am going to hang my hopes on secondary considerations.

Earlier this week Mike Drummond, the Editor in Chief of Inventors Digest, authored an article titled US Senate Votes to Leave Patent Office Underfunded for 2010.  In this article Drummond explained that over the weekend, while no one was paying attention, the Senate voted to leave USPTO funding at the same level in 2010 as it was in 2009, which…

In the popular press there have been a number of stories over the last week or so regarding how the US is losing its edge in innovation as indicated by the drop in patent filings between fiscal year 2008 and fiscal year 2009.  The headlines have been sensational at times, claiming that the recession is affecting US innovation.  While such…

I am just getting back from two days at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, having attended the 14th Annual Inventors Conference.  There is much to report, and much to write about, and I will continue to digest, analyze and write about what I saw and my impressions in the days to come.  It is, however, undeniable that there…