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from the fighting-against-the-tide-is-tiring dept.
TechDirt reports
[...] The past few USPTO directors had been cut from the "more patents is always a good thing" mold, whereas Lee actually recognized that bad patents harmed innovation. And even though the last time the Patent Office got concerned about bad patents it allowed the patent approval backlog to fill up, under Lee the backlog has reached its lowest point in a decade.[paywall]
[...] For all the craziness going on in the government right now, having competent leadership at the USPTO would be one less thing to worry about. But... now it's being reported that Lee has suddenly resigned and sent a goodbye email to staff. That's bad news on the patent front.
Of course, it may be ages before any new director is appointed. As I type this, of the 559 key positions requiring Senate confirmation, Trump hasn't even named a nominee for 431 of them. [...] Adding the new USPTO director to that pile may mean no new USPTO director for.... who the hell knows how long.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by julian on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:47PM (4 children)
I hear you making an argument for public financing of research.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:00PM (1 child)
My understanding is that there isn't a good history of that getting results. I'm not opposed to the idea in principle though.
I also support charitable drug-research. The Cancer Research UK charity does this, for instance. (I'm not certain of the details or how they manage patent issues.)
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:15AM
CSL [wikipedia.org], until it was privatised for no good reason.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:55PM
You and I both know that a much better argument would be necessary to convince the American people to pay for this.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday June 07 2017, @10:43PM
Show me where that works long term. Look at the pathetic husk of NASA if you want a vivid counter factual. You might be too young to remember when they weren't pathetic losers, when they really were steely eyed missile men. But that was long ago and few remember; and their exploits now seem so improbable that large numbers believe they faked the moon landings. But no, they really were real men, the sort who made the wonder weapons that won WWII and the heroes who used them, then but something happened. And that something happens every time to a large government machine, it quickly turns to shit.
So if you want to assemble a vast government R&D team to solve a specific problem it might work, but the price is that it will obey the basic law of government. There is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program. Meaning it will waste resources decades beyond the time it is capable of actually accomplishing anything remotely useful.