Not long after it was reported that a Chinese military unit might be responsible for a number of cyber attacks that have taken place on US infrastructure and businesses, the Obama Administration unveiled its strategy to put an end to the theft of US trade secrets by foreign governments and foreign competitors.  More specifically, US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel, who spoke during a recent White House meeting, said that “the Administration will continue to act vigorously to combat the theft of American trade secrets that could be used by foreign companies or foreign governments to gain an unfair commercial advantage over U.S. companies.”

A Five-Step Approach

There were five action items discussed in the strategy document.  The first one suggests that more focus should be placed on diplomatic efforts to protect overseas trade secrets.  The second item calls for private industry to promote voluntary best practices in order to protect trade secrets.  The third action item suggests that domestic law enforcement operations should be enhanced.  The fourth item calls for the improvement of domestic legislation.  And the final action item seeks to provide more public awareness, as well as stakeholder outreach.

The White House website explains that it is the right of the people to petition the government, a right that is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Of course, the idea of petitioning the President is not something that is new, but the ability to use the Internet to create an online petition that may be considered and responded to by the Federal Government is indeed quite new. Not surprisingly, the Obama Administration, known for savvy use of the Internet both in governance and campaigning, pioneered this unique approach to making government reachable by the masses.

With this in mind, last week, a petition was created to petition the White House to take down the website Jerk.com. To date the petition has unfortunately not received many votes. Earlier today I was the 28th e-signer of the petition. My guess is that this is due to lack of publicity more so than anything else. Once people learn of the petition my guess is that the signatures will accumulate quickly, but will there be enough time to reach the 100,000 signature threshold by February 22, 2013?

The first order of business, however, is to get the required 150 signatures so that the petition will be searchable on WhiteHouse.gov.  To view and/or sign the petition visit We the People.

Yesterday afternoon in a blog post on the White House blog, Victoria Espinel, who is the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, announced that the Administration is seeking input from the public on a new strategy for intellectual property enforcement.  ”The overarching objective of the Strategy is to improve the effectiveness of the U.S. Government’s efforts to protect our intellectual property here and overseas,” said Espinel.  ”[I]t matters that we have the right approach—one that is forceful yet thoughtful, dedicated and effective, and that makes good and efficient use of our resources. Therefore, who better to play a key part in shaping the new Strategy than you, the American people?”

Earlier today the Federal Register Notice announcing the Administration attempts to develop a join strategic plan on intellectual property enforcement was published.  The announcement explains by committing to common goals, the United States will more effectively and efficiently combat intellectual property infringement.  Frankly, I don’t know what this means.  Are we not all on the same page already? I know there are nay-sayers out there, but does anyone really take seriously the anti-IP sentiment spewed by the anti-capitalist crowd?  Seriously, thanks to a generation or more of policies that have made it difficult to impossible for manufacturers to succeed in the United States intellectual property is by and large all we have left to drive the economy.

Today I attended the an event on Intellectual Property and the US Economy which was held in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds. The purpose of the event was to unveil a study — Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus— prepared by the Economics and Statistics Administration and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The study found that intellectual property intensive industries support at least 40 million jobs in the United States and contribute more than $5 trillion dollars to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).  That is to say that 27.7% of all jobs in the U.S. were either directly or indirectly attributable to IP-intensive industries, and the amount contributed to the U.S. economy represents a staggering  34.8% of GDP.

“This first of its kind report shows that IP- intensive industries have a direct and significant impact on our nation’s economy and the creation of American jobs,” said Commerce Secretary John Bryson. “When Americans know that their ideas will be protected, they have greater incentive to pursue advances and technologies that help keep us competitive, and our businesses have the confidence they need to hire more workers. That is why this Administration’s efforts to protect intellectual property, and modernize the patent and trademark system are so crucial to a 21st century economy that is built to last.”

Last week at the 6th Annual Patent Law Institute presented by the Practising Law Institute last week in New York City I found myself a little star struck; or maybe “surprised” is the right way to characterize it.  The term “All Star Panel” is thrown around too liberally in the CLE world and relative to programming at various annual meetings.  Having said that, the panel titled “Dialogue Between the Bench and Bar” was comprised of some of the biggest names in the industry, and they didn’t seem interested in pulling punches.  Nothing seemed sacred, at least in terms of topics, which lead to a lively and entertaining discussion that lasted 90 minutes without a single question from either the live audience or the webcast audience.

The panel that ended the first day of the program was moderated by Don Dunner of Finnegan, Henderson, who is the unofficial “Dean of Federal Circuit Advocates.”  I had the pleasure of interviewing Dunner nearly a year ago and always enjoy listening to his thoughts and soaking in his wisdom.  To his left was Chief Judge Randall Rader of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and to Rader’s left was Seth Waxman former Solicitor General of the United States and now of Wilmer Hale.  To Dunner’s right was Judge William Young of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and to Young’s right was John Whealan, currently of George Washington Law School and former USPTO Solicitor.

The discussion was lively, perhaps even explosive.  You could nearly see sparks fly when Chief Judge Rader continued to pepper Waxman with question after question about his opinion on the propriety of parties lobbying the White House in order to obtain a favorable amici brief from the Department of Justice.  Rader zeroed in on the slippery slope and obviously is not pleased with the mixing of law and politics, saying: “this is a cause for concern… Politics and law have a divide.”

It has now been several weeks since the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1249, dubbed the America Invents Act, which is commonly referred to as patent reform.  In February 2011, the U.S. Senate passed S. 23, their version of patent reform.  In their infinite wisdom, or lack thereof depending upon your perspective, the House did not pass a bill that was identical to S. 23, which means that before patent reform will become a reality it needs to once again be taken up by the Senate.  But what are the odds of that happening any time soon?

Even the most casual observer likely knows that the United States is in the middle of a debt crisis.  According to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner we have until August 2, 2011, within which to raise the debt limit and allow for more borrowing.  Apparently the failure to raise the debt ceiling will trigger calamitous events that will cascade into an economic catastrophe.  Yes, pretty big stuff seems to be at issue over the debt limit, which is consuming all of the oxygen in the room.

Counterfeiting and the theft of intellectual property rights is not just a matter for companies.  Such theft, or piracy as it is frequently referred to, is a major issue for the United States government.  Over the years the piracy problem has continued to grow in importance in both trade relations and in the war against organized crime and terrorists.  The United States needs to do what it can to prevent intellectual property theft because of the negative impact it has on job creation and our economy.  It is also imperative to shut off the flow of easy money to criminal enterprises.  Without money they become starved for resources, a big strategy in the fight against global terror.

On May 5, 2011, in prepared remarks in a speech to commemorate World Intellectual Property Day, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke acknowledged  that much still needs to be done regarding theft of intellectual property around the globe.  Secretary Locke said: “[W]hen over 80 percent of all software installed on computers in China is counterfeit and when first-run movies continue to appear on rogue web sites as soon as they show up in the theaters – then we know the problem is still grave.”

As part of the White House’s Startup America initiative, on April 6, 2011, senior Obama Administration officials will visit St. Paul, Minnesota to meet with entrepreneurs and hear directly from them on ideas and suggestions for reducing barriers and improving regulations to build a more supportive environment for entrepreneurship and innovation.

Using the input from the roundtables and broader public participation, the Obama Administration hopes to put together a list of the best ideas to streamline and simplify unnecessary barriers to America’s entrepreneurs and innovators. The Administration says these ideas will be incorporated into the agencies’ responses to the President’s Executive Order instructing federal agencies to identify and take steps to eliminate or reduce regulations that are outdated or overly burdensome to entrepreneurs.

At least initially, President Obama was keenly interested in exploring how the United States government could use open source software rather than rely on proprietary software. President Obama was so interested in pursuing open source software solutions that on his second day in Office he asked Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, to lead his open source charge.  In fact, President Obama reportedly asked McNealy to prepare a report on how the federal government could employ open source software, but as yet, some 26 months later there has been no mention of the report or across the board government adoption of open source software.

Open source advocates praised the fact that President Obama wanted to transition the U.S. government away from proprietary solutions and into open source, but now that the report has seemingly stalled and the White House has done little more than release open source Drupal code, what does the open source community have to show?

During his prepared remarks on Wednesday evening at the ceremony to award the Medals of Science and Medals of Technology and Innovation, President Obama discussed the importance of a quality science and mathematics education, and the fact that recently the White House played host to winners of science fairs. He explained that the White House hosts championship sports teams, so why not host science fair champions as well. This is certainly a worthwhile endeavor, but where does this lead us?  Yes, the President and those in Congress always say the right things regarding math, science, innovation and technology, but now it is time to build on the rhetoric with action.

In a ceremony held in the East Room of the White House, last night President Barack Obama awarded the National Medals of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation; the highest honors bestowed by the United States Government upon scientists, engineers and inventors. During his remarks last night President Obama was in typical form, interchangably jovial and serious. The event left one feeling that President Obama would like very much for science education to become a priority.  What follows is a transcript of President Obama’s remarks, followed by information about each of the Medal recipients, their research and innovations that lead to each being selected for recognition.

Earlier this evening President Barack Obama awarded National Medals to 16 distinguished scientists and engineers in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.  I was in attendance as a member of the press, which was an extraordinary experience.  I will write about my behind the scenes look at what I experienced in the days to come, and tomorrow we will have complete coverage of President Obama’s remarks at the ceremony.

I probably broke all kinds of press rules by clapping throughout the ceremony.  I probably should have remained stoic, but the men and women who were on the stage with President Obama are the true rock stars of our industry and I just could not bring myself to do anything other than applaud them for their achievements.

On Wednesday, November 17, 2010, President Barack Obama will honor the 2010 recipients of both the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.  President Obama will present the recipients with their awards in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House starting at 5:20pm.  I have been granted press credentials by the White House to cover this event, and will be there with my trusty Canon EOS Rebel XT taking pictures for a Photo Diary of the event, which I will publish here on IPWatchdog.com.  So check back Thursday morning for my first hand account of the awards ceremony and a birds eye view of the event from inside the White House.