Posts Tagged: "national innovation tax"

General Electric was not the only large U.S. corporation not to pay taxes. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, General Electric had some company. In fact, American Electric Power, Dupont, Verizon, Boeing, Wells Fargo, FedEx and Honeywell all had tax rates between -0.7 percent and -9.2 percent for the stretch between 2008 to 2010. On the other hand, the United States Patent and Trademark Office continues to have user funds siphoned off, making the USPTO a much larger taxpayer than the largest U.S. corporations.

Everywhere I go, I meet entrepreneurs whose ventures either failed or are slowly dying on the vine because of the outrageous delays they suffered in getting patents. Who would invest the huge sums needed to develop a new medical treatment, for example, without at least the promise of exclusivity and a return on their investment that a patent provides? But because of delays stretching up to seven or more years in getting a patent, these startups lost crucial funding opportunities—or in some cases, even went bankrupt—as a result of the backlog of 1.2 million applications now throttling America’s overburdened and underfunded “innovation agency.”

The last Continuing Resolution (or CR) ran out on April 8, 2011, with a 11th hour agreement, which was ultimately passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama the following week. When the dust had settled the United States Patent and Trademark Office did not fare well at all, with $100 million be diverted from the Patent Office. That lead to the Office today announcing severe austerity measures because they don’t have the funds available to operate as a going concern.

Just like in the story-line of Independence Day, where the alien death ships slowly but surely positioned themselves over each major city, with the eventual outcome well understood, so too is Intellectual Ventures (I.V.) slowly positioning itself as the patent overlord over many major industry segments. Just like in the movie, the eventual outcome is well understood. To wit: Complete usurpation of the U.S. Patent system. The outcome is a ,gigantic tax/toll collector controlling the pulse of innovation in the U.S. or, like the movie, extermination of innovation.

What we need to focus on are those that are taking from the patent system without returning anything to the patent system. Rather than call these groups patent trolls, I would much rather call them what they really are — innovation vampires. These innovation vampires grab hold of as many patents as they sink their teeth into a company and begin to suck the life right out by holding the company, and often times the entire industry, hostage. No tax policy could ever do as much damage to an economy. This massive redistribution of wealth without an iota of benefit to society must stop!

Director Kappos was also asked whether there were any plans to allow the community to access the patent search platform that is available to patent examiners. Kappos explained that it was simply not possible for the Patent Office to provide access to its systems to a greater extent than already allowed because the IT systems are “too fragile.” In fact, the state of disrepair that the computer systems at the USPTO are in is almost unfathomable. Particularly when the USPTO is collecting $1 million every day that it is unable to use. So they get the work, but not the fees. A recipe for the backlog and pendency going in the wrong direction.

Saying that Congress controls the Patent Office is something of a misstatement really. It would be far more accurate to say that Congress starves the Patent Office and is constantly demanding more and more with less and less. At a time when $1 trillion is spent like Monopoly money to put Trump like towers on Boardwalk and Park Place it is not only irresponsible, but down right embarrassing that our political leaders in Washington are starving our innovation agency while they hit the campaign trail with all the required high-tech, innovation and job growth platitudes that the evening news demands in 15 second intervals. There is plenty of blame to go around with respect to how we got into this state, but does anyone think we can realistically get out of this mess without thoughtful Congressional assistance? Then the real nightmare question becomes: Does anyone really think we will ever get thoughtful Congressional assistance?

Earlier this week Mike Drummond, the Editor in Chief of Inventors Digest, authored an article titled US Senate Votes to Leave Patent Office Underfunded for 2010.  In this article Drummond explained that over the weekend, while no one was paying attention, the Senate voted to leave USPTO funding at the same level in 2010 as it was in 2009, which…