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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: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday June 07 2017, @06:39PM
I went and looked through the list provided by ourpublicservice.org. Trump is probably up there with the most Marxist president we have ever had. He seems to be keeping the functional people around but not appointing any management positions. I went through and looked up some of the positions on wiki and a lot have an acting chair/whatever maintaining the position. I am unsure how these folks get chosen to be the acting position or by what means they found themselves in that role, but I presume this is a less political process than the appointed top dog.
There are a lot of ambassadors not yet appointed, I am uncertain (and do not have the time currently, break almost over) to go look at who is doing these roles as acting ambassador but it is a highly political position. What I take from all of this is that we have very little change in how things are run from Obama with the exception of the person giving orders presumably supported by the previous president not being there.
I am rather interested in seeing how this plays out.
Is there a constitutional mandate that any of these 431 positions be filled? How many of these are fluff political positions invented to make a friend/supporter some money? No doubt there are some in here that should be filled (no disagreement there), but I think the main opposition these not being filled would be by Dems who don't want a Rep shill and by Libertarians wanting less government.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam