Posts Tagged: "President Barack Obama"

On Tuesday, May 25, 2010, Adam Albrett, a patent attorney (Reg. No. 50514) who lives in Fairfax, Virginia, was arrested and charged with making threats on the life of the President of the United States, Barack Obama. At that time an order of temporary detention was issued by US Magistrate Judge Thomas Rawles Jones, Jr., who ordered that Albrett be held in custody pending a detention hearing that was to be held on Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 1:30 pm. Instead of the detention hearing being held today it was deferred until Tuesday, June 1, 2010, at 2:00 pm. Albrett’s temporary detention was extended until that time.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) recently came to agreement with Committee Ranking Republican Jeff Sessions (R-AL) on changes to the Patent Reform Act of 2009 (S. 515), winning Senator Sessions’ support for passage and making it extremely likely that patent reform will happen this year, and likely very soon. An individual involved in the ongoing patent reform debate…

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, painted a bleak picture of the future of the US economy over the next decade. The reality he paints is altogether true, unfortunate and extremely unnecessary. He concludes that “those who have lost their jobs to foreign outsourcing or labor-replacing technologies are unlikely ever to get them back. And they have little hope of finding new jobs that pay as well.” This may be true, but I know that it doesn’t have to be that way. The outsourcing of jobs is largely in violation of US export laws and that seems to me to demonstrate the reckless disregard for the American worker rampant in Washington, DC. The US government is not doing anything to enforce US export laws on the books and stop outsourcing that is in violation of US law.

EDITOR’S NOTE: President Obama’s recently submitted budget would allow the USPTO to hire 1,000 patent examiners during both FY 2011 and FY 2012.  It would also provide an interim fee increase on certain patent fees which is estimated to generate $224 million.  There is no mention of fee diversion, but reading between the lines it seems the budget would allow…

If you are unaware that Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown was victorious last night via special election to fill the remaining term of the Senate seat held by the late Senator Ted Kennedy you must be living under a rock.  Over the last month or so Brown has surged in the polls and took Massachusetts and the nation by storm, claiming…

Earlier today President Barack Obama, perhaps with the best of intentions, demonstrated that he is not all that familiar with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and how they handle patent applications. The short of it is that what President Obama said to tech executives was wrong on the facts, but at least partly correct in spirit. Essentially, President…

A press release issued earlier today by the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) explained that a new article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) urges Congress and the White House to revisit pending biogenerics legislation that would grant biotech companies an a 12-year exclusivity period for biologics. The press release explains that the experts, who are Harvard…

If you have not already read the letter from Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to Senator Patrick Leahy (Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee) and Senator Jeff Sessions (Ranking Republican Member), you absolutely need to read it to comprehend the massive changes the Obama Administration is supporting with respect to patent reform.  It would be difficult to over exaggerate the magnitude…

There has been something brewing for at least a couple weeks now on the patent reform agenda, and I have been trying to make sense of it all.  I am not sure I have my head wrapped around it yet, but the Wall Street Journal (via Dow Jones Newswire) is reporting that President Barack Obama is placing his support behind…

On Friday, October 2, 2009. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke appointed Sharon Barner to the post of deputy director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter John Schmid reported yesterday that in a telephone interview with Barner she explained that she is a long time associate of President Barack Obama, knows him personally and has…

Let me set the record straight from the start. I do not agree with President Obama on much, and I voted for and supported John McCain dating all the way back to his first run for President. Having said this, it is impossible to ignore the fact that so far President Obama and his Administration is saying all the right…

Last week USPTO Director David Kappos explained during his speech at IPO that intellectual property law “is widely recognized as the engine that drives our information age economy, maintains our competitiveness and is responsible for creating and sustaining tens of millions of U.S. jobs.” I have been beating this drum now for several years, and despite the obvious and indisputable…

Several weeks ago, as summer was winding down and most of us were enjoying some slow times and gearing up for back-to-school, preparing for Labor Day festivities, on vacation or studiously studying fantasy football player projections, Law.com published a very interesting piece titled Slot Opens on Federal Circuit Bench, More Vacancies to Come? The article started out by discussing how…

I wish I had some inside information to pass along, but I do not.  All I can seem to come up with is unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo, but the report the other day from Patently-O that Duke Law Professor Arti Rai is heading to the Patent Office to fill a long vacant policy setting position has too much of a…

Earlier today James Love and James Glassman published what can only be described as an intellectually dishonest op-ed piece on RollCall.com.  The two James either simply do not understand patent law, the biologics legislation they detest or have an agenda that requires lying and obscuring the truth using scare tactics and falsehoods.  I don’t really know whether they are as…