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Douglas Schoen on patent reform

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

An op-ed on patent reform by Douglas Schoen begins:

What if I told you that labor unions, small-business associations, drug companies, physicians' groups, prominent academics and the Bush administration were all lined up against a major piece of federal legislation currently winding its way through congress?

Although Schoen has a better understanding of the diversity of patent "reform" opponents than does Roy Mark of eWeek, one would certainly like to INCLUDE small inventors and university tech transfer offices TO the list and EXCLUDE most so-called IP academics FROM the list.

Academics like Jaffe and Lerner were testifying in favor of the reform legislation, in spite of their limited credentials in the area and their limited understanding. Lemley, not a registered patent attorney either, was flip-flopping all over the place, first endorsing the Quillen/Webster patent grant rate numbers over those of Clarke, and then back-tracking, even though no new data was created. Quillen and Webster had been wrong all along. But the Stanford professor who once wrote that Gary Boone invented the integrated circuit won't admit the error of his ways on Quillen and Webster.

Why some IP professors are so out of step with their tech transfer offices is an interesting question.

Although Schoen writes on 17 July 2008: [patent reform] "is currently under consideration in the Senate, " IPBiz notes that realistically S.1145 is more than 90 miles away and won't be of concern during this session. One can stick a fork in it.

Full post as published by IPBiz on July 20, 2008 (boomark / email).