12.12.17
Gemini version available ♊︎The Mask Falls: Lobbyist David Kappos Now Composes Pieces for the Patent Trolls’ Lobby (IAM)
Not only speaking at IAM events and receiving celebrity treatment from IAM
Source: David Kappos 2013 interview
Summary: David Kappos, a former USPTO Director who is now lobbying for large corporations that derive revenue from patent extortion, is writing for IAM even if his views are significantly biased by his aggressive paymasters (just like IAM’s)
THE patent trolls’ lobby (IAM) once again boosts lobbying/lobbyists of patent bullies, courtesy of David Kappos, who used the “China!” scare tactics to pressure for patent maximalism. What’s seemmingly unique this time is that IAM doesn’t just mention Kappos but gives him the entire platform.
Here is the introduction (the rest is mostly copy-paste of his comment on a speech/talk):
David Kappos, who was President Obama’s first USPTO Director and is now a partner at Cravath Swaine & Moore in New York, has put together a brief opinion piece for us on the Delrahim speech. Although he served under the previous administration, Kappos is in no doubt that in its second term, at least, it favoured users of IP over those who created it. Delrahim’s speech, he states, signals that at the DoJ that will now change …
It is very troubling when former USPTO officials (not just Kappos) are proceeding to using their “access” (connections) to get clients in the lobbying sector. Kappos has taken that to new extremes, which reinforces the perception of USPTO corruption.
Also published on the same day was this IAM blog post which debunks Kappos with his China-baiting (examples covered earlier this year). The latest twist in the Veeco tale simply shows how US patent law undermines US companies as they already rely a great deal on Chinese suppliers. By attempting to sue in the US it provoked litigation elsewhere and it has backfired badly. The “US company’s stock [is] falling,” basically because it become overzealous and litigious.
In a patent dispute that seems tailor-made for the Trump era, a US semiconductor company says a Chinese competitor has relied on IP infringement and government subsidies to significantly undercut its business. But although New York-based Veeco won a key preliminary injunction battle in front of a US district judge last month, a court in China hit the US company with an injunction of its own four days ago, causing one analyst to surmise that its patent enforcement campaign has badly backfired.
Veeco makes equipment used to manufacture LEDs, and until recently had about 60% market share in a technology known as MOCVD reactors. It makes the reactors itself, but has licensed German company SGL to manufacture a specific component called a wafer carrier. SGL also supplies wafer carriers to Advanced Microfabrication Equipment (AMEC), a new Chinese player in the MOCVD space.
[...]
It is not clear whether the China injunction is a preliminary or permanent one, or what the next steps are, but Veeco claims the decision was handed down “without providing notice to Veeco and without hearing Veeco’s position on alleged infringement” – which suggests it could be the former. The NASDAQ-listed company told investors that it will appeal the ruling, which it affirned applies only in China and only to some of its products in that market.
China has become fast and loose with embargoes and trolls. This is exactly the sort of thing Kappos wants back in the US, failing to recognise how ruinous it is for small businesses, i.e. not his clients (in his capacity as a lobbyist). █
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