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 158 Out of 200: Making Alliances With Men Arrested for Strangling Women Was Always a Terrible Strategy
They work for American slop companies
 
Links 22/08/2026: Prince Harry, Elton John and Others Pay High Price for Frivolous Litigation in the UK
Links for the day
'Voluntary' Mass Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
IBM does not want people to notice what truly goes on there
Another Round of GAFAM Layoffs, This Time Apple
Now Apple "is shutting down an entire Vision Pro team focused on developing gaming features for the mixed-reality headset."
Gemini Links 22/08/2026: The Bodyguard (1992), Minimalism, Backups, and IPFS
Links for the day
Links 22/08/2026: TikTok Settles With Feds, Harms Caused by Social Control Media Gaining Attention
Links for the day
New Data Shows Microsoft's XBox is Really Dying
XBox is a "burning platform"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 21, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, August 21, 2026
Sources-First Publication
Thank you for keeping us on track
Ubuntu is Not Linux
I was one of the first users of Ubuntu
Links 21/08/2026: Outrage Over Politicians Who Support Slop-Feeding Data Centres, "America Is About to Get More Expensive"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/08/2026: Rain Coming Back and "Small Internet"
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at IBM, But Mostly in Secret (PIPs and 'Voluntary' Redundancies)
Gerstner laid off a record number of people; Krishna tries to find 'innovative' new ways to cause workers to leave
Slop-ware: Nobody Knows What Code Goes Into Linux and Most Developers Cannot Understand the Rust Code (Even If They Tried)
So nobody is in charge
The Slop Pyramid Scheme (Not Boon!) Isn't Good for GNU/Linux, Even If the Plagiarism Engines (Framed as "Training" or "Intelligence") Almost Always Run GNU/Linux
We need the slop pop - we need the bubble to pop
North America: GNU/Linux Measured at 13%-15% Every Night
many (north) Americans use GNU/Linux at home and are using it to access the Web in the small hours of the morning
Links 21/08/2026: "Silicon Valley’s Billionaire Cults Are Coming for Democracy" and "Who’s Raking it in as the National Debt Explodes?"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 157 Out of 200: What is a 'Defamation Troll'?
"Defamation Mill" also
Northern Europe Leads the Pack in Abandoning Windows After Threats Made to Greenland (Says Clownflare Data)
Clownflare has a vast trove of data, so it cannot be easily dismissed as pure nonsense
Clownflare: In Past 12 Months Microsoft Windows Fell From ~80% to ~75% on Desktops/Laptops in Asia
Microsoft is deep in debt
Secret Layoffs at Microsoft, Apparently More Sites Will Shut Down Entirely
vindicates us and serves to affirm what we've said for over a month
The State of Slopfarms About "Linux" in August 2026
The Web needs serious cleanup, which curation can help deliver
IBM Offers Workers Some Money to Fire Themselves, It's Called "Next Step" and It's Allegedly 'Extended' (Not Enough Fools Have Fired Themselves)
Will IBM executives - including the CEO - ever be held accountable?
£5 Million Unsolicited/Undisclosed Bribes and What That Means to British Politics
It still remains unknown (disclosure denied) who helps fund the £1 million lawfare against us
[Satire] Pocock, Binface & nobodies vs Farage: defamation before UK High Court
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The IBM Censorship Team, PIPs (Silent Layoffs) in IBM Europe
There seem to be many de facto layoffs going on at IBM right there
SLAPP Censorship - Part 156 Out of 200: Brett Wilson LLP Becoming Wilson FC
Now acting almost like one-person shop (lots of staff has fled this past year)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 20, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, August 20, 2026
Gemini Links 21/08/2026: "Ensmallening the BigWeb", "Rust Dependencies"
Links for the day
Links 20/08/2026: 'Linux' Foundation Promoting Slop Hype for Money (Hype as a Service), Malaysia’s Exports Jump 38% Year-on-Year
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/08/2026: A "Break From Routine" and "Modem Was the Problem"
Links for the day
Clownflare Reckons GNU/Linux is on Almost 1 in 10 Laptops/Desktops in Western Europe
Western Europe and China are leaving more of GAFAM behind them
Looking Ahead at September
Rianne and I look forward to a productive September
Links 20/08/2026: Facebook "Ran Ads for an App That Promised to Nudify Female Politicians" and Facebook Faces "Social [Control] Media Addiction Trial"
Links for the day
Clownflare Sees GNU/Linux at 16% Market Share on Desktops/Laptops in Tajikistan
in Tajikistan it seems like adoption of GNU/Linux is exceptionally high, based on a very large data set associated with Web access
The Demise of Social Control Media Continues
Entering (anew) social control media in 2026 seems foolish
SLAPP Censorship - Part 155 Out of 200: Throwing Stones in Houses Made of Glass
character-assassination-as-a-service
Gemini Links 20/08/2026: Planners, Pantsing, Vinylyssee
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 19, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 19, 2026