Loyalty is NOT Competence
Popularity: 8%
It is pretty apparent to anyone, regardless of political ideology, that the current administration has appointed some serious boneheads to important positions, with disastrous results. “Brownie” and the botched aftermath of Katrina. Political hacks staffing the Coalition Provisional Authority post invasion of Iraq and billions in cash go “missing”. And so on. This President thinks loyalty trumps basic competence. You might believe that such problems will not reach you and me, which would be wrong. I’ll give you an example, which is also a strong refutation of minimalist government advocacy.
The Bush appointees running the U.S. Patent and Trademark office announced a couple of months ago their intent to change the patent application and approval process in order to streamline it. I won’t go into details, most of which I couldn’t explain anyway, but suffice to say that the intellectual property community thought this was a bad idea. Well, that’s not really accurate. Many experts felt it might actually undermine our whole patent system, and with it the motivation for private industry to pour Billions into R&D. They felt it might damage the foundation of the entire U.S. economy, which, I’m guessing, would affect you. Bear in mind these are the lawyers for the high-tech, biotech and pharmaceutical industries making these claims. Think Brooks Brothers and wingtips, not tie-dye.
How could the Undersecretary of Commerce who runs the Office make such a blunder? It seems she’s a politician without so much as a technical degree, let alone experience in the area. Finally Glaxo Smith Kline broke ranks and filed a complaint, and a torrent of condemnation has ensued. Thankfully, the rulemaking is unlikely to proceed without dramatic changes.
In order to do patents right, the government needs lots of highly trained examiners reviewing all the applications in detail. Sadly, much as with teachers, patent examiners do not always have the skills and experience they should. To try to pigeonhole innovation into certain forms that the USPTO might find more efficient, in order to avoid the need for more examiners, is like expecting your horse to learn to crap in cubes because it’s more easily stacked that way.
The bottom line is that government needs to function as an enabler of industry, not a circus master, as here, or a wet nurse, as with farm subsidies. Intellectual property rights can only be implemented by government. As our economy moves further away from making things and towards designing them, that role will be of escalating importance.
John
