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Joff Wild fulminates on qualifications for USPTO director

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

Joff Wild at IAM continues to sound the trumpet for a non-patent attorney USPTO director:

And just like the US Chamber of Commerce, what the ABA fails to do is explain why "any person selected to be Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks be a lawyer having experience in patent and trademark law". Surely the US patent and trademark systems are far too important to be a closed-shop in which only those who have practised IP law get to make vitally important decisions about how they should function. As I have said previously, the truth is that all Americans have a stake in the health and vitality of IP in their country. What works best for IP attorneys may not be what works best for the US as a whole. To restrict the top jobs in IP to just a section of American society would be counter-productive and could run the very real risk of excluding people with the vision and ability to bring real leadership to the USPTO at a time when IP has never been a more important business and political issue..

Of course, the "top" jobs at the USPTO are already restricted, sort of (remember the Margaret Peterlin case?). Is Joff's argument extendable to saying the surgeon general position should not be restricted to doctors?

See also

Wild on IP personalities of 2008

Full post as published by IPBiz on January 19, 2009 (boomark / email).