The American Spectator

Reader Mail

'Tis the Season to Be Jolly

12.5.07 @ 12:01AM

(Page 5 of 5)

I'm a big fan of yours, but I thought that you publishing an article so critical of Rep. Carson while she's on her deathbed was in extremely poor taste. I have no more use for her politics then you do, but couldn't we at least wait till a little while after she has passed in order to criticize her? It just seemed wrong and unnecessary to me.
-- Cliff Smith

DOES NOT COMPUTE
Re: Viet D. Dinh's Yes to the Patent Reform Act:

As an inventor and entrepreneur, I find the Coalition for Patent Fairness consultant's commentary to lack any objective relationship with facts. No inventor agrees with The Patent Reform Act of 2007. No serial infringer finds any fault with that same flawed bill. Go figure.

The Framers' intent with regards to inventors comports specifically with rights of individuals not special interests such as the "Coalition for Patent Fairness." Patents, like copyrights, originate from entrepreneurs of thought. America needs to enhance, not devalue, their activities. Invention is not a zero sum game. Each disclosure adds to the sum of our collective knowledge base. Mr. Dinh's notion "that today's entrepreneurs face unnecessary and costly litigation caused in large part by a sharp increase in the number of low quality patents and legal rules" is laughable at best. To wit, what is a "low quality patent"? Is that similar to a "bad movie"? Entrepreneurs face litigation because of serial infringers, period.

Unlike Mr. Dinh, I believe our patent system should be vigorously examined not hastily "deformed." Because over a third of patents are issued to small entities and individuals the notion that The Patent Reform Act of 2007 will improve the system by allowing repeated challenges to issued patents unequivocally undermines the bargain the Framers made inviolate in the Constitution. It is the Congress that chose to divert the self-supporting applicant fees that pay for the Patent & Trademark Office the last time "reform" was promised in 1999. Patents must be enabling disclosures. Even competitors should access and review every filed patent and pending patent application, as the 1999 reforms enabled. But, Congress rightly needs to allow the Courts to make determinations of validity and value attributed to patents.

That Mr. Dinh has the temerity to assert that "patent trolls" are "speculators [that] profit at the direct expense of consumers and risk-taking inventors and investors" is patently false. And, even if they were, consumers do "not" buy technology: they buy goods and services. Patent trolls result from capitalist activities no different than purchasers of mortgage securities. They provide liquidity to an illiquid market. Why should an inventor be restricted in how to achieve a liquidity event over his/her property? Why should the government involve itself in on-going challenges to a property instrument? Why should an inventor have to make anything if he is best at inventing? Coke does not manufacture glass: Warren Buffet does not build factories.

I, for one, believe in reduced government involvement in our markets -- including the areas of patents. As an inventor I prefer to compete not complain. If Mr. Dinh is troubled by the success of inventors who invent today what is bought and sold tomorrow, perhaps he should consult the Coalition he represents to focus more on innovation and less on lobbying.
-- Scott Moskowitz
President & Founder Blue Spike, Inc.

Professor Dinh takes precisely the wrong approach to patent "reform." Rather than have a Constitutionally-mandated Federal agency perform its function fully and well, he urges inventors simply to invent less, and seek less protection on what they do invent. I urge Professor Dinh to stop producing lawyers, as we clearly have too many already, and bad quality legal reasoning is far more costly to the U.S. economy than a few more patents.
-- Lawrence A. Husick
Southeastern, Pennsylvania

Letter to the Editor

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