03.10.19
Gemini version available ♊︎Koch Brothers’ Oil Money is Poisoning Academia and Distorting Scholarly Work/Research on Patents
Summary: Meddling in patent law by the Kochs, the oil tycoons who can be seen everywhere Conservative think tanks are, shows no signs of abatement
David O. Taylor, Associate Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law, has a new paper about patents. Patently-O promoted it before the weekend. The number of blog posts in Patently-O has generally sunk sharply over the past year or two (that’s good because it’s a patent maximalists’ blog that pressures the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to grant software patents and constantly lobbies against the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)). Sign of the times for US patents as Jason Rantanen has just posted this propaganda from Texas, soon to be criticised by several people.
Not too shockingly, as we expected right from the start, the Kochs gave this law school many millions of dollars; Josh from the CCIA found many issues with this paper. It’s detached from reality. This ought to be a treated as Koch-funded work, just like the work of Adam Mossoff (Scalia Law School) and his colleagues, who pressure courts. These fools then brag about it! They actually take pride in what they are doing for these billionaire polluters. Justice Gorsuch was later citing him at SCOTUS (the Koch-funded school even wrote a whole news article to brag about it). Such influence inside the highest court in the US is troubling. Are courts too up for sale? Through academia and appointments? We wrote about this subject before in the following posts:
- Koch Brothers and Big Oil Could Not Buy the Decisions in Oil States, SAS
- As PTAB Continues to Squash a Lot of Low-Quality Patents the Koch-Funded Lobbyists Attack Its Very Existence
- Richard Epstein From a Koch-Funded Think Tank Attacks PTAB Because PTAB Squashes Weak Patents That Only Exist for Protectionism and Offense
- The Anti-PTAB (Patent Trial and Appeal Board) Lobby is Partly Funded by the Koch Brothers and the Right Wing
Academic integrity can never be assured when one receives millions in “gifts” from the Kochs. These aren’t gifts; they want something in return. █