The PATENT Jobs Act of 2013

By Dennis Crouch

Reps. Honda, Lofgren, and Eshoo (All D-Ca) have collectively introduced the Patents and Trademarks Encourage New Technology (PATENT) Jobs Act of 2013 with the sole purpose of exempting the USPTO from the sequestration process for FY2014-2021. As I noted in my recent congressional testimony, the greatest impact of the America-Invents-Act has been increased funding at the USPTO and the resulting improved ability of the Agency to address the workload requirements. Although all of the USPTO's expenditures are matched by user-fee revenue, the sequester has been applied to the agency in a way that guarantees that a portion of every user-payment to the PTO is spent on general federal expenditures rather than for patent examination.

Both the AIPLA and IPO are strong supports of the proposed bill.

35 thoughts on “The PATENT Jobs Act of 2013

  1. 35

    I am sure that publicly available education is as american as the Constitution. Public education needs to extend to college and vocational schools and needs to be available to everyone. Basic principle of our country that our democracy rests on education.

    I would go much further than this and make all state universities free or nominally free. That would put a lot right with the world.

  2. 34

    Here they go again with inventor retartive legislation. Instead of using the extra money from fees increase for the right projects they want to steal from inventors and put it in the general fund. Instead of my plan for progress including using the money for development of top marketable inventions or top inventor filing fees or top inventor legal fees or top inventor nessary security from industrial goons all in cases where inventors are sufficiently indegent to afford it themselves. There going in every wrong direction to level the legal playing field and they know it.

  3. 33

    Sounds like a good idea to me. It would also encourage the schools to educate the students so they can get good jobs and fund the school.

    I still can’t believe how expensive college is now compared to when I went to college. Funny thing is so many of the colleges just help themselves to bonuses. For example, the professors get to devote 20% of their time to a start-up even in state schools. And, they act like that isn’t at least a 20% bonus in pay compared to when I was a student.

  4. 32

    The irony here is that I find humor despite (not because) of your attempted slam, Malcolm.

    Machines (you know, those things that do what humans can do) are STILL patent eligible.

    The humor is that you don’t even recognize the law of 101 and think your jest somehow makes a point about that law.

    Here’s a better link: link to news.yahoo.com

  5. 31

    link to cnn.com

    Rapiro is a humanoid robot that can be programmed to do various tasks — including make you coffee…. Rapiro can also be fitted with a camera to give it the ability to gather and store visual data.

    ANTORPROMOPHOMOFICATION!

    Just think about all the non-obvious awesome stuff this robot can do. The USPTO is waiting for your patent applications! Hurry up before someone dedicates to the public your non-obvious robot-implemented method for gathering data, making huevos rancheros, or sending an email to your mother’s robot! Every patent you obtain creates a job: licensing uses for a humanoid robot. Do you want that job or not? You don’t have time to think about it! JUST FILE. The USPTO has special offers for micro-entities with micro-inventions. Miss this opportunity and you’ll miss your chance to own a piece of the massive humanoid robot pie that will feed the world’s children tomorrow and for the foreseeable future as calculated by a different humanoid robot that has already been licensed!

  6. 29

    Interesting development in creating an affordable higher education system:

    link to prospect.org

    Oregon’s legislature is moving ahead with a plan to enable students to attend state schools with no money down. In return, under one proposal, the students would agree to pay into a special fund 3% of their salaries annually for 24 years….

    [B]ecause a universal IBR system requires individuals to pay back a percentage of their income, it ensures that graduates that go on to more lucrative careers effectively subsidize graduates that do not. So, it is (in a sense) internally redistributive, which is a positive from an egalitarian perspective. Finally, because repayment is based on income, no one will find themselves overly burdened by the repayment obligation.

    I wonder which “tier 1” law school will be the first to adopt this model?

  7. 27

    link to epi.org

    The figure shows that job growth in the current recovery is slightly stronger than the job growth following the recession of 2001. However, it is slower than in the prior two recoveries and is in fact slower than in any other previous recovery dating back to World War II. Furthermore, jobs fell much further and faster during the Great Recession than in any other recession over that period, meaning that we are stuck in a much larger jobs-hole four years into recovery than in any previous business cycle. The fact that four years into the recovery we still have not yet come close to making up the jobs lost in the downturn, (much less the jobs needed to keep up with growth in the potential workforce over that time), is a grimmer situation than anything our labor market has seen in seven decades.

    See also:

    link to calculatedriskblog.com

  8. 25

    If only. This crony socialist paradise stinks. The dirty regulatory games and rewarding your friends while punishing your enemies via the government is exactly as Ayn Rand described. I prefer the old capitalist system that built this country. I didn’t feel nearly as dirty when you got ahead on merit instead of government favors.

  9. 24

    LOL, and history is apparently lost on you. You didn’t know who Margret Sanger was, and didn’t even bother to look her up did you? That’s just pitiful.

  10. 23

    LOL – why would you think that?

    Were you not paying attention during the AIA discussions? They COULD have expressly added such langugae and chose not to.

    Gee, I wonder why…

    /off mock-amazement

  11. 21

    t’s founder, Keynes says that there are limits to his theory

    No kidding. Really? Wow. Who knew?

    In that case, let’s get rid of the EPA and the FDA and move to a patent registration system. Then the jobs will just create themselves and we can enjoy the capitalist paradise that the One True Prophet Norquist has promised us.

  12. 18

    bad joke – shush now, that’s not something they’re equipped to think about. They bury it deep so they don’t have to.

  13. 17

    A good rule of thumb is if Reinhart-Rogoff‘s opinion says one thing, you can be fairly sure the facts are on the opposite side

    Fixed.

  14. 15

    A free tidbit of education:

    Austerity is high taxes and govn’t spending cuts.

    Growth is low taxes and govn’t spending cuts. Or if you want to get really wild with the growth, regulatory cuts.

    You’re espousing the absolutely discredited theory of Keynsian economics. Even it’s founder, Keynes says that there are limits to his theory, and we have far and away exceeded any sense of reasonably limits on that theory. We’re into Weimar economics now; not a recipe for success.

  15. 14

    Weird. And here I thought that tea partiers were generally Republican voters. Is this some new strain of democrat tea partier heretofore unknown? Margret Sanger type?

  16. 13

    You like leaving your children your debts?

    “Only if the money is used for k*lling brown people.”

    /teab-gger off

  17. 12

    A good rule of thumb is if Paul Krugman’s opinion says one thing, you can be fairly sure the facts are on the opposite side

  18. 11

    As Paul Krugman has correctly pointed out over and over, austerity is a zombie economic policy. It simply won’t die, no matter how much data proves its failure.

  19. 10

    Austerity in a weak economy with high unemployment leads to higher unemployment, and thereby lower revenues and a higher deficit.

  20. 9

    I think you mean “cuts spending”. Why do you say it like it’s a bad thing? You like leaving your children your debts? That’s pretty messed up.

  21. 7

    Ah, then maybe he should try a Holiday Inn Express. I hear they are a lot better at imparting knowledge of the patent system.

  22. 6

    I’ve noted that przemoli simply does not bother with knowing what he posts about.

    But he did sleep in a Holiday Inn last night.

  23. 5

    FYI, the maintenance fees are extremely “progressive”. Try reading this blog a bit. The fees have been reported extensively here.

  24. 3

    Its hard to kill cash cow when you are on the red side..

    Good idea behind the bill. No revenues for federal budget? No temptation to press for easier and faster granting of patents (for sole purpose of getting those patent aplication fees..)

    Though US need some tweaks about patent fees too. (Like pregressive fees at intervals throught patent life time -> so that unpracticed and unlicensed patents are flushed out of the market)

  25. 2

    Could they not get bi-partisan sponsorship for this bill? Or didn’t they try, even though the House is controlled by the other party, and that could improve its chances?

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