Posts Tagged: "innovation ecosystem"

PTAB proceedings have radically changed the time to money for patent owners asserting U.S. patents against infringers. Additionally, the value of U.S. patents has dropped substantially since its peak in the 2012… Like many others, I applaud Director Iancu’s stated focus on the PTAB process and his concern about whether the U.S. patent system is fostering innovation investment and risk taking, especially for inventors, universities, and small to medium enterprises.

Corrosive changes in patent law are undermining research university commercialization of patented, federally-funded basic research, endangering our nation’s innovation ecosystem. Mounting uncertainty repels private investment needed to convert new discoveries into innovative public benefits. Prominent investment destabilizers include: post development invalidation, big-tech’s efficient infringement, increased costs of patent enforcement, looming congressional patent reform, and foreign IP theft and price/access manipulation. Collectively these uncertainties can crumble our country’s world-class innovation ecosystem. We must use the limited time left to reverse that catastrophic outcome by seizing every opportunity to do so.

“At the end of the day innovation is important,” Jung explained before he lamented the fact that the United States “seems to be making it harder and harder to be competitive globally…” Jung ended his presentation by pointing out that in 1820 the United States contributed only 1.8% of world GDP, but that thanks to an innovation economy the United States peaked at about 30% of world GDP, “predominantly driven by invention-driven industries like automotive, like aerospace, like pharmaceutical and so on. These were all based on key inventions that the US dominated the landscape on. That’s clearly not going to be the case going forward. It’s going to be much more distributed across many different countries, which is why I think, again, diversity is going to be the key.”

Speaking without notes, Walker was in rare form. He spoke about everything from job creation to the need to allow innovators to benefit from the fruits of their labors… If you want an engine to create jobs you have to have inventors who bring value. “Make no mistake, at the core is invention and innovation, pick your term, they are one in the same,” Walker said. Without customers we don’t have jobs, and you cannot get customers without solving a problem and having some kind of competitive advantage. “If we don’t have a strong ecosystem that supports innovation we are going to have less of it. This isn’t rocket science,” he exclaimed. If we make something complicated we will have less of it.