Posts Tagged: "chamber of commerce"

The letter explains that the results from the Chamber’s IP Index has shown that as a whole North America is at a considerable disadvantage compared with both Asia and Europe. “NAFTA modernization is an opportunity to elevate the IP frameworks to a level commensurate with the world’s leading economies – if it fails to put Canada and Mexico among the top 10 countries ranked on the Index it will be a missed opportunity,” the letter reads.

Here is what Director Iancu had to say about the Wright Brothers: “At my swearing-in, I remarked that through the doors of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office comes our future. And indeed, it does, and it always did. We must celebrate that. From Thomas Edison to the Wright Brothers, from Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer to Steve Jobs, American inventors have fueled the imagination of our people for generations. We are a pioneering people who overcome large obstacles in order to realize our dreams and create prosperity. Inventors help make dreams reality, and American invention changes the world. Indeed, with American patents, humans made light, began to fly, treated disease, and enabled instant communications across the globe from tiny devices in our pockets.”

“We are at an inflection point with respect to the patent system itself. As a nation we cannot continue down the same path if we want to continue to succeed economically. We will not continue down the same path,” Iancu explained.

While the United States continues to do well overall, patent protection continues to be problematic. In 2017 the U.S. ranked 10th worldwide in terms of offering patent protection to innovators. This year, the U.S. fell out of the top 10, tumbling to a tie for 12th with Italy… With a decrease in the score relative to patent protection from 2017 to 2018, the United States joins a handful of other countries that are not thought of as being at all intellectual property friendly. Those countries having a weaker performance relative to patents in 2018 include the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, Columbia, Chile and Australia. See page 22 of the Chamber report.

At this moment in history almost everything we thought we knew about global patent protection is being challenged. The U.S. is not the most patent friendly jurisdiction in the world, instead being tied for 10th with Hungary, which really puts into perspective the fall from grace patent rights are having in America… There is no doubt that the U.S. continues to take steps backwards due to variety of self- inflicted wounds. The omnipresent threats of more patent reform, a Supreme Court that has created unprecedented uncertainty surrounding what is patent eligible (see e.g., here, here and here), and a Patent Trial and Appeal Board that has been openly hostile to property owners (see e.g., here and here), allows harassment of certain patent owners over and over again, all the while failing in its mission to provide relief from patent trolls. Meanwhile, a number of countries around the world have taken positive steps forward on the patent front, including countries you might not ordinarily consider as patent friendly jurisdictions.

The report noted key areas of strength for the American IP environment, including effective trade secret protection, commitment to international treaties, mechanisms for pharmaceutical-related patent and generally appropriate boundaries set by courts on copyright exceptions. Along with narrowing patentability and weak enforcement against counterfeit products, key weaknesses for the U.S. included ambiguity regarding the obligations of Internet service providers (ISPs) to respond to trademark-holder notices of infringement and the need to speed up information sharing between rights holders and border agents to aid in the identification of infringing goods.

Senator McCain’s remarks related to defense acquisition reform generally, but more specifically related to the need for the Department of Defense to streamline acquisition of new, innovative technologies. McCain told the audience that ”our Defense Department has grown larger but less capable, more complex but less innovative, more proficient at defeating low-tech adversaries but more vulnerable to high-tech ones.” Indeed, with an agency as large as the Department of Defense, a woefully inadequate response to technological advances and adoption of cutting edge innovation should be anticipated.