Originally Posted 8/14/07
Way back on April 19th of this year, I wrote about the potential for patent reform occuring this year, and stating my case for why I was against it (http://www.lld-law.com/2007/04/will-patent-reform-occur-this-year.html#links). Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran a commentary article on the Patent Reform Act of 2007. Although I missed this article, I was lucky enough to see the responses the article generated in the letters to the editor section that was published in today’s (8/14/07) Journal.
I’m not sure if it was my blog article which paved the way for these reponses or not (I’d like to think it was), but thier sentiments echoed much of what I wrote about in my original article 4 months ago. For instance, David P. Vandagriff, the VP of IP for Helius, Inc. (www.helius.com), an IP broadcasting company, noted how interesting it was that the medical industry, universities, and most venture capitalists are all opposed to the act, which was somthing I mentioned four months ago. Mr. Vadagriff goes on to echo what I stated in April – saying “this reform bill is the brainchild of a small group of very large computer technology companies including Microsoft, Intel, and Oracle. It is not coincidental that each of these companies has been a defendant in an antitrust suit. They rely upon market power to maintain their dominant positions and are serial patent infingers.”
I don’t mention this article simply to show my view is commonly held. I’m writing this blog article becuase this Act is not going away unless you, the individual inventor, the small company with great IP, or just a member of the the general public who doens’t want big business to win dirty yet again, contact your representative or senator and tell him or her why you DON’T want this bill to be passed. If we don’t get this bill killed, the US patent system will essentially be “run” by the biggest technology companies on the planet.
