Posts Tagged: "washington post"

The Washington Post Misses the Mark on March-In Rights

The National Institute of Standards and Technology recently indicated in its “Return on Investment Initiative draft green paper” that it would issue regulations effectively ending attempts to misuse march-in rights to assert government price controls over successfully commercialized federally-funded inventions. Such an announcement was bound to elicit a reaction. That it came in The Washington Post shouldn’t be a surprise. The paper’s April 18 article, “A rare deterrent to limitless drug price increases may die under Trump” gives coverage to both sides, but the takeaway is that something nefarious is underway: “As drug prices have soared, lawmakers and patient advocates have pushed the federal government to deploy for the first time a powerful deterrent: a legal provision that allows it to suspend a drugmaker’s patent and license someone else to produce the drug. Now, responding to industry alarm over those demands, the Trump administration is proposing to strictly limit the little-known power,” said the article. There’s a reason why this “little-known power” has never been used—it doesn’t exist.

Are Corporate Employees Protected by the First Amendment?

As it related to the Google incident, it was first reported that a memo authored by a Google employee, titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber”, was being circulated among Google employees. Later that day, the memo was obtained by the media and made public. The memo’s author was identified in the press as a senior employee named James Damore. In the memo, Damore criticized the efforts of tech companies, Google included, to employ programs and hiring practices concentrating on diversity. Specifically, Damore was critical of tech company initiatives which had the goal of recruiting and employing female engineers.

CIPU media survey reflects high subjectivity in mainstream media reporting of patent infringement stories

The media study shows high subjectivity among patent infringement news coverage, with 42% of the articles surveyed advocating a specific narrative… The study, which focused on coverage of patent infringement cases from 15 publications across business, tech and general news, finds that subjectivity in patent infringement coverage may be fostering a narrow view of patents and patent owners within their readership. This subjectivity calls into question the newsworthiness of patent infringement reporting among many major news outlets, including Forbes, Fortune, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Ars Technica and more.

Why it is unnecessary to open the patent system

Chien argues that it is impossible for someone to donate their technology without fearing that another will get a patent on it and defeat the well-meaning donation to the public. Such a statement plays into urban mythology and preys upon those who are convinced that patent applicants can and do steal innovations and get patents instead of the rightful inventor. If that were actually true I’d be all in favor of opening up the patent system, whatever that means. Unfortunately, Chien builds her argument on a factually erroneous foundation.

University/Industry Partnerships Work: Don’t Kill the Golden Goose

If universities were run like businesses, they would not perform basic research designed to push forward the frontiers of learning. Indeed, industry has largely abandoned such research precisely because of its cost and risks. However, basic research is where breakthrough technologies such as biotechnology occur. The U.S. would be in dire straits if universities abandoned basic research seeking short term payoffs.