Robert N. Schmidt

President Biden’s new Executive Order, “Federal Research and Development in Support of Domestic Manufacturing and United States Jobs” is well intended but fails to address a most fundamental problem. That is: the patent system is broken. While requiring agencies to assure that new research that utilizes Federal research dollars be manufactured in the United States, there is no way to enforce that.

As we start to approach the apex of the COVID-19 pandemic, the next hurdle will be solving the economic crisis. Getting people back to work will be the next job for America’s leaders. America’s small businesses have always been the backbone of the country’s economy, providing 64.9% of net new jobs. Main Street shops and restaurants play a very important part in providing paychecks. However, even more important are America’s inventors. The inventor/entrepreneur (“Inventorpreneur”) creates the technologies and jobs that stay in America and don’t move overseas to places like China. They usually do this by patenting their inventions and creating new companies. Intellectual property (IP) produces high paying jobs not only for scientists and engineers, but also for marketing and manufacturing managers, technicians, salespeople, artists, and others.