Posted on 09/09/2015 8:42:00 AM PDT by Pelham
Here is a story of how $1,000 a plate Washington breakfast influenced the votes of several Conservative Members of Congress who serve on the House Judiciary, including Representative Steve King (IA-04), allowing Committee passage of H.R.9, the innovation killing Innovation Act.
Over the past several years there have been a number of large corporations, many that have patents themselves, who have funded and managed a powerful Washington lobbying effort. The focus has ostensibly been on reforming the problem of patent litigation abuse, but the changes advocated would be to their favor at the expense of innovators, like universities, independent inventors and startups. These large companies commercialize thousands of technologies invented by others, without permission, and thus benefit directly from weaker patent rights.
In total, this lobbying effort, which has been lead primarily by Google, has dumped over a billion dollars on Washington in ten years in a seemingly endless effort to kill inventors and small innovation companies so they can take their patented inventions without consequences. Google alone spent over ten million dollars the first six months of 2015 climbing the charts to number three in corporate spending in Washington. This effort created a fictional cartoon character called a patent troll, placed Google employees into key positions within the USPTO, Commerce Department, and The White House, and influenced many votes to pass damaging legislation.
The Chairman of House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte (VA-06) unveiled H.R.9 in the House Judiciary Committee in early February. Congressman Goodlatte is not only the primary driving force behind H.R.9, but importantly, his son was a Facebook executive. Free riding on innovation sounds like a great deal, but as it turns out nothing in life is really ever free. Still, the potential conflict of interest goes a long way to explain why Congressman
(Excerpt) Read more at ipwatchdog.com ...
Ping
basicaly this is a good deal for inventors
Not to mention that if NASA (for example) invents something, and then when a big corporation “re-invents” it, the US Gov won’t go to court for the rights.
“basicaly this is a good deal for inventors”
No, it’s terrible for inventors. It weakens patent protection. This makes it easier for large firms with deep pockets to steal IP from small firms or individual inventors.
Right now the biggest problems seem to be that the patent office has given up on researching prior art and giving patents for trivial and obvious improvements on prior patents. One seminar I attended called this the five legged chair patent. If someone patents a chair with four legs, someone else can essentially take that patent, cross out four, write in five and patent that with the patent office relying on the courts to later rule whether the patent is void because it is obvious.
Well you’re right, he doesn’t explain the problems with the law, in this article he’s describing how it is getting passed by the firms that want it.
I’ve been an unwilling participant in some of this stuff for over a decade. I sometimes forget that others aren’t familiar with the inter partes reviews at the USPTO and other schemes to weaken patent protection.
The whole process is being gamed by hedge funds and big firms that are stealing patents.
Big Corps. buying votes is nothing new but now they seem to have a new lap dog to help them. This is why people have such low regard for our government.
“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
One can be fairly certain that the title of any FedGov bill is always the exact opposite of what the bill is really about.
The danger here is that they are altering patent law. The IPR process is already being heavily abused. We won’t have any small firms able to get paid for the products they invent and that has historically been why America has prospered.
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