11.20.17
“US Inventor” is a “Bucket of Deplorables” Not Worthy of Media Coverage
Summary: Jan Wolfe of Reuters treats a fringe group called “US Inventor” as though it’s a conservative voice rather than a bunch of patent extremists pretending to be inventors
A VERY short while ago Jan Wolfe, who had been covering PTAB for a while, published this article about so-called ‘conservatives’ attacking PTAB. We wrote about it yesterday. These are not quite the classical Conservatives but anti-government groups that are also misogynist and racist — the uglier face of US politics that aligns with the anti-scientific party (GOP). "US Inventor" (covered here before) is mentioned by Wolfe, who is perhaps easily misled by the name of the group. These are the people who bully Michelle Lee and resort to terms like “drain the swamp”. They could only get less than a dozen people to gather for an illegal protest on USPTO premises, so why even pay attention to them?
From the article:
“It’s time for us to make patents great again,” Michael Caputo, an advisor to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, told those gathered. US Inventor, the group behind the protest Caputo now represents as a spokesman, is calling for the abolition of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board, an administrative tribunal run by the patent office that reviews the validity of patents.
The rallying cry marks an about-face for some conservatives, who broadly supported the board’s creation in 2011 as a way to rein in trial lawyers and “patent trolls,” who hold patents for the sole purpose of suing big companies for licensing fees.
“Things have really flipped when it comes to the conservative perspective on patents,” said Charles Duan, a lawyer with left-leaning consumer group Public Knowledge.
Much of the credit goes to activists who have convinced many conservatives that the real problem is not out-of-control litigation but how the tribunal designed to speed up resolving patent disputes favors big business over smaller rivals.
Public Knowledge is a reputable group that has existed for a long time. We don’t understand why Wolfe saw the need to give an impression of parity. To entertain “US Inventor” on patent matters is like entertaining the NRA on public safety matters. Better not done at all, in the name of quality control rather than censorship. █
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