Bonum Certa Men Certa

Academics and Think Tanks for Patent Maximalism

Theodore R. Bromund, Ph.D.



Summary: Right-wing think tanks and impressionable academics continue to lobby for patent maximalism, rarely revealing the funding sources and motivations; in reality, however, such maximalism mainly helps large (already-wealthy) corporations, monopolists, and law firms

THE UNITED States may have a serious problem with money in politics/policy. Money buys law. It buys legislation. It also buys influence/lobbying from academia. It's all about money. This is why the US ended up with terrible patent policy and up until a few years ago (owing largely to a court which is hard to corrupt) there was no hope. A bunch of large and powerful law firms had a grip on the patent system. This grip is nowadays slipping away and in response to it they make a public showing of disdain against the changes. Sometimes they also bash courts and judges.



As is typical for a Sunday, Patent Docs lists some patent-centric events, streams, conferences (symposium/webcast/other), lobbying etc. It's nothing but patent maximalism up on display.

Some of the topics of upcoming events/webinars promoted by Patent Docs today: Ethics (in patent law), double patenting and "Patent Ownership Rights". They're not ownership or even a right. Patent Docs also mentioned this 'summit' on biosimilars. It disclosed that "Patent Docs author Kevin Noonan is a co-chair of this conference" (shameless self-promotion perhaps).

"As is typical for a Sunday, Patent Docs lists some patent-centric events, streams, conferences (symposium/webcast/other), lobbying etc. It's nothing but patent maximalism up on display."The Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO), a patent extremists' front group that lobbies for software patents and other bad things, has a session/presentation/topic titled "What Future Does the UPC Hold for Us?"

Well, the UPC has no future. It's dead. Who's behind this "2018 European Practice Committee Conference"?

"Who's behind this "2018 European Practice Committee Conference"?"Introducing the aspect of gender when it comes to patents isn't anything new. It's not illegitimate, but sometimes the angle is interjected for someone's gain (not women's but the patent microcosm's). Yale SOM has something to that effect.

Yale has this new article by Jyoti Madhusoodanan, who explores the relative lack of patents from women or rather than low allowance (acceptance/grant) rates. As one patents expert (who is female) put it: "If inventor’s gender is truly impacting allowance rates, that’s very troubling. Hope @uspto will respond to this. Note that study does not seem to consider role of patent attorney. Lay inventor is often largely unaware/misguided re a patent’s prosecution."

From the article itself:

In the United States, women earn half of the doctoral degrees in science and engineering. But when it comes to patenting their inventions, they trail far behind men: Only 10% of patent-holders are women. Even in the life sciences, where women earn more than half of new PhDs, only 15% of inventors listed on patents are women. According to a new analysis by Kyle Jensen, Balázs Kovács, and Olav Sorenson of Yale SOM, published in Nature Biotechnology, this disparity stems in part from how patents are obtained and maintained over time.

Gender-based disparities have been found in orchestras, academic publication, and many other areas. But understanding the imbalance with patents has been historically difficult because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) only offered information on one patent at a time. A recent bulk data release enabled Jensen, Kovács, and Sorenson to trace the histories of 2.7 million patents issued between 2001 and 2014. They analyzed maintenance fee payments, prosecution histories, and the full text of patents, which revealed the interactions between inventors and examiners as well as how a patent claim was altered during the process of filing.


Whether the issue is the USPTO itself (maybe its recruitment policies play a role) is not a subject we wish to entertain here because this entire topic is sensitive and divisive. But it's probably worth reading into it, making or basing one's judgment on underlying figures/statistics. Is the solution to hire more women? Or to grant more patents to women? These are not questions that are easy to answer without upsetting some groups, but at the end of the day patents should be judged solely based on their merit.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Bankruptcy
"Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows"
Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
 
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: Simplification and Networks Everywhere
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 31, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 31, 2025
Google Bribes EFF. EFF Promotes LLM Slop as 'Fair Use'. To GAFAM It's a Low-Cost Lobby Hedge.
So the bribes pay off ("slush fund") and the word spreads
Slopwatch: Fake Text and Images, Financial Bubbles, and Scams in "Intelligent" Clothing
Sometimes what they mean by "AI" is just cheap labour somewhere else, as we discussed in IRC a few hours ago
Why Microsoft is Collapsing (Similar to What's Happening at IBM), As Insiders See It
IBM seems like one heck of a mess
Reliable Computing Means Free (Libre) Computing
Sites that want to promote security ought to deal with the biggest issues
Links 31/05/2025: US Court Orders Sides With RFE/RL, War Updates From Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/05/2025: ARM Server and power_supply Subsystem
Links for the day
Links 31/05/2025: Slop Stigmatised as Disinformation, Catalyst/Driver of "Death of Communication"
Links for the day
Common Sense 101: Do Not Write Blog Posts Saying You Want to Murder Colleagues (or Yourself)
Only crazy people would think stabbings are a joke
Links 31/05/2025: Microsoft-Connected Builder.ai is a Fraud and US is Purging Students Based on Race/Nationality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Limmat, Doomscrollers, and Arguments Parsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025