No, the patent system is on the verge of collapse because we can't put enough
engineers to work. When they come out of engineering school, they find out they
can't get work because there are no engineering jobs. Then they try to apply
for the only other jobs for which anyone might take them seriously -- jobs as
patent agents. I've had a number of these engineers ask me for jobs like
that.
What they don't realize is that there are no jobs available as patent
agents, either.
I think you would be surprised to learn that almost every
patent attorney and patent agent would be happy if the patent system were
simplified. But it isn't going to happen. The Courts continue to show that
they don't want to simplify it, and the so-called reforms made by Congress make
the law even less clear and make it necessary to draft patents in less time and
in greater quantity than ever before, thereby in the near future, further
lowering the quality of patents that will be filed.
Of course, another part
of the problem is that Congress can't or isn't willing to do anything to make
the country more competitive in other ways, either by providing more jobs for
engineers or by making it more expensive for companies to replace U.S. employees
with cheaper offshore labor.
If the system is a mess, then it's probably
because we elect wilfully ignorant people to Congress. I mean, look at the
majority members of the House Committee on Science and Technology as an example.
Todd Akin? The one who says a "woman's reproductive system shuts down in a
legitimate rape?" Paul Brown? The Paul Brown who said to his supporters that
evolution and the big bang theory "are lies straight from the pit of hell?"
Dana Rohrabacher? The one who said that temperature fluctuations on earth
millions years ago were due to dinosaur flatulence?
Golly, we're all so
smart.
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