Bonum Certa Men Certa

No Expectation of the US Patent System Getting Fixed Any Time Soon

Clinton fighting for herself



Summary: On the agenda of the supposedly 'liberal' side (hawkish and corporatist in practice) there's no reason for Hope of Change and new data suggests that patent practices are gradually ebbing away in the United States

THE USPTO strives to grant more and more patents, i.e. the mistake that the EPO repeats under Battistelli.



Now that Hillary Clinton makes her supposed position on patents publicly known, EPO mouthpieces say that "Clinton releases her patent to-do list, but it’s on the Hill where the reform agenda will be driven" and Jamie Love, a patent reformer (especially in the area of access to medicine) says "Hillary Clinton makes a few welcome suggestions regarding reforms of patent litigation in US."

"The patent world's mumbo-jumbo, in particular misleading euphemisms like 'protection', 'property', 'asset', 'assertion', and 'innovation' aren't exactly mesmerising and we hope that people everywhere will manage to filter the buzzwords and assess things for what they really are."Here is the referenced page and some blurb from IP Watch about it. We don't honestly think that Clinton would work for anyone other than herself and her campaign contributors, i.e. Wall Street, oligarchs (like Donald Trump) and large corporations, but giving her the benefit of the doubt, let's see what TechDirt made of it after careful analysis. TechDirt published two articles on the subject; one was titled "Hillary Clinton's Tech Policy Plan Includes Some Empty Broadband Promises And A Continued War On Encryption" and another "Hillary Clinton's Intellectual Property Platform: Too Vague & Confusing". This pretty much reaffirms what we believed all along. Lots of promises, no expected delivery. It's campaign season's rhetoric, just like Clinton's (her husband) and Obama's (who now endorses her, having failed to make any positive change in the patent system). Speaking of spouses, see "Quick Hit: Massachusetts Case Litigating Spouse’s Interest in Invention." It comes from Patently-O and it says: "I can’t find anything available on line that is not behind a paywall, so… Recall that I’ve written here about how there’s an interesting question as to whether in a community property state the spouse of an inventor has an interest in inventions (and other IP). Defendants have, so far unsuccessfully, taken quitclaims from the spouse in an effort to defeat infringement suits, as a result.

"There’s a Massachusetts appeal pending where, from what I can tell from what I’ve found on-line, the spouse of an inventor is claiming that because funds from a joint bank account were used on the invention, she has an interest in it. The case is Mazzu v. Mazzu, No. 2015-P-16011, and it is on appeal from the Suffolk Count Superior Court to the Appeals Court of Massachusetts. Who knows what we will learn."

Another Patently-O article, this one by Jason Rantanen, says that "Professor Radin’s discussion is worth a read for the eloquent way that she captures and synthesizes the raw strands floating around in current discussions about patent claims."

"This whole election cycle is already well down the drain as people are basically presented with the choice between an oligarch and one who works for oligarchs."The patent world's mumbo-jumbo, in particular misleading euphemisms like 'protection', 'property', 'asset', 'assertion', and 'innovation' aren't exactly mesmerising and we hope that people everywhere will manage to filter the buzzwords and assess things for what they really are. Another new Patently-O article is particularly interesting as there's a graph, derived from raw data, showing a decline in the number of newly-registered patent practitioners since Obama took public office. Here is the caveat: "The above graph shows only initial registrations. It does not show changes in which a patent agent becomes a patent attorney, as the practitioner does not receive a new registration number. The registrations for 2015 indicate that 42.4% of the initial registrations were for patent attorneys and 57.6% were for patent agents (some of whom later became or will become patent attorneys)."

Whatever happens next in the US, we believe that neither Clinton nor Trump will make things any better. This whole election cycle is already well down the drain as people are basically presented with the choice between an oligarch and one who works for oligarchs. It's somewhat of a lost cause.

Recent Techrights' Posts

SLAPP Censorship - Part 86 Out of 200: The Position of Courts on Computer-Generated Lawsuits and Filings From Another Continent (Made by Two Men Who Work for Slop Companies)
Lawsuits by proxy from California
IAM Magazine is in Effect Dead, It's Now Fused Into Microsoft's Patent Troll (Which It Has Promoted All Along)
Microsoft-connected patent trolls in Europe [...] Now, in his new job, Wild can use his 'expertise' to help guide blackmail/extortion to better harm Europe's industry
 
Gemini Links 24/05/2026: Impressions of Auckland, the Age of Left or Right Extremism, and .zim files
Links for the day
Microsoft's 'Hiring Freeze' (Layoffs) and Salary Freeze (While Inflation Approaches Double-Digit Rates)
If they get replaced by anyone, it'll be low-paid folks in low-salary regions [...] workers' stress levels shoot up, compensation goes down
Slop Will Not End Humanity, The Pushers of It Do (Artificial Scarcities and Global Warming)
Causing hunger and poverty in the name of "computation"
How Can the 'Broligarchs' Love Us When They Don't Even Love Themselves?
Their SLAPPs have their limits
Death at IBM Due to Overwork
Dying for IBM is never worth it
We Publish Less, We Get More Exposure
UbuntuPit is coming to realise that quantity isn't what comes to matter or truly "count", especially when quantity comes at expense of authenticity
Codecs and Software Patents - Part IX - GNU Project Has Chosen to Adopt AV1 for Its Videos, Conversion and Additions Underway
One of our readers is working to help GNU through the maze of software patents and maze of patent lawsuits, which aren't the same thing but are somewhat overlapping issues
Links 24/05/2026: SoftBank CEO Getting Conned by Scam Altman, Hotter 2026 and El Nino With Growing Impact
Links for the day
Links 24/05/2026: Ebola Outbreak and "Journalists Identify Murder Victims Of Trump’s Boat Strike Program"
Links for the day
A Huge Proportion of 'Articles' in The Register MS Are Actually Paid Spam of the Communist Party of China, Selling Compromised (for Wiretapping) Technology
The Register MS is having a go at becoming a marketing company or "B2B"
Top Officials Have Just Left Microsoft, Layoffs in Anything But Name
Microsoft's debt is very fast-growing
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) Meets "Alicante Mafia" at the European Patent Office (EPO)
Report on meeting with VP1 and his team on 21 April 2026
UbuntuPit (ubuntupit.com) Has Deleted Slop Pages, Its Slopfarm Experiment Has Failed (Like Always!)
Turning one's site into a slopfarm is a death knell
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 23, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, May 23, 2026
The "Next Big" Bonus for IBM's CEO Apparently Comes From American Taxpayers While Veteran IBMers Are PIP'd and RA'd (Laid Off)
the next big thing will be the CEO's bonus
Links 23/05/2026: Starbucks Scraps Disastrous Slopfest, Colbert’s Final ‘Late Show’
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/05/2026: Poetry, Hobbies, ROOPHLOCH, and More
Links for the day
Government Bailouts Won't be Enough to Save IBM
Bailouts from taxpayers in the US
Links 23/05/2026: Social Media Bans and Demise of Userbase of LLM Chatbots
Links for the day
Legal Letters Are Not Postcards
It seems like intimidation, nothing more
SLAPP Censorship - Part 85 Out of 200: The United Kingdom's Rating for Press Freedom Has Improved, But We Can Do Even Better
we see the US at #64
Sites Realise That Becoming More Active by Using Bots (LLM Slop) is Self-Destructive
We'll soon (maybe next year) also show that some of the 85+ KG of legal papers sent our way are computer-generated garbage, which might run afoul of some rules
European Patent Office (EPO) Strikes Persist, EPO Management Tries to Give False Impression of "Happy Staff"
EPO is trying to broadcast to the world a totally phony image of itself
Gemini Links 23/05/2026: Patience, LLM Chatbts Being Bad, and Unexpected Computer Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 22, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, May 22, 2026
Links 22/05/2026: Ebola Crisis and Samsung Averts a Walkout With Big Bonuses
Links for the day
The End of FOSSPost (fosspost.org), It Has become an LLM Slopfarm Like FOSSLinux
These sites will never get lucky with slop. These experiments always end badly.
Links 22/05/2026: Inflation Fears and Thailand Tightens Visa Rules for Tourists From Dozens of Nations
Links for the day
EPO Staff Representation Speaks of This Week's Discussion With the EPO's Budget and Finance Committee (BFC) Amid Mass Strikes
The Central Staff Committee's outline (prepared in a rush) or the "flash report"
SLAPP Censorship - Part 84 Out of 200: New Legislation Against SLAPPs on the Way (After We Reached Out to Ministers)
They dealt with the matter individually too, but we won't share this in public, at least not at this time
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXX - Where Was "The Ethics and Compliance Team" When the Family of EPO President Campinos Was Caught Doing Cocaine?
It remains to be seen if national delegates will tolerate this in future meetings
Gemini Links 22/05/2026: Esperanto Music History, Suspicious Adoption of Signal, and Unauthorised LLM Slop in Code
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 21, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, May 21, 2026