Who’s behind the last-minute push to thwart patent reform?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/05/21/whos-behind-the-last-minute-push-to-thwart-patent-reform/

by RougeFemme • 12 years ago

75 59 12 years ago

Every day, it becomes more apparent that our democracy has been thwarted and overrun with oligarchs and special interests. Each party is beholden to its own oligarchs and the best solution I see is term limits of some sort. Politics shouldn't be a career. Because it currently is a career, our politicians must cater to those who are their bosses. The people are no longer the boss and that is the core problem.

Even if this is an overreach that would "treat every patent holder as a patent troll" (a claim I find highly suspect), doing nothing has the effect of harming the very people that can move our economy forward, the innovators and entrepreneurs. When making a decision between a bill that helps this group versus trial lawyers, it's unfortunate that our leadership chooses the latter to protect.

Amezarak• 12 years ago

How will term limits help limit the power of oligarchs and special interests?

If the term limit is more than one term, they still need funding to run their re-election campaign. If a politician finds himself in his legally mandated final term, then he also has no reason to listen to the people - unless he's running for another office, in which case he still needs the funding from special interests and oligarchs. Even if he's not running for another office, whose opinion do you think he's going to care more about - John Q Public's or Special Interest ABC, which is prepared to offer him a cushy consulting/lobbying position or directorship after his public service ends?

Even if you limited congressional service to a single term, you still wouldn't solve the problem - they'd still need financial support to get elected in the first place, they'd still get cushy job offers for after they leave, etc. Additionally, history (and current events) show us that congressional inexperience matters: you end up with a much more partisan Congress that tends to more strongly toe the party line, and you rely more on outside "experts" (lobbyists) to write effective legislation. Partisanship tends to be a little more muted when you've eaten lunch with the guy on the other side of the aisle for the past 40 years, and when your voting district has known you their entire lives rather than voting for you solely because of the R or D on your name.

The US has been oligarchic from day one - indeed, much of the founders thought we had gone far too democratic as it was and would have preferred a king and parliament. And as it was, by and large, only propertied white men could vote - and senators were chosen by the state legislatures (who obviously chose people of power and/or wealth) rather than direct election, as it is now. In almost every way, we're better off now than we were to start with - though I do think we're on the downslope of a curve here lately. I just don't think you can reduce the problem to "it's the career politicians!" - there's a lot more to do it than that, and I'm not so sure being a career politician is even a problem. I'm sure most of these politicians don't even really think they're doing something wrong - they see Americans and American businesses and what they perceive as experts trying to "educate" them that we need things like software patents. I don't think simply replacing the politician is going to help at all there.

protomyth3• 12 years ago

Term limits won't do anything except cycle the politicians faster. There are two systems that need to be cut in DC to change the tenor.

The first is the cycle of government employees overseeing contracts and then going to work as lobbyists or employees for the people they were overseeing. Passing an amendment that says no government appointee or senior staff member can go work for any company they had contact with while holding the position for 5 or 10 years will end the first cycle.

The lobbyist / I need $ for reelection is harder. Some say only government funded campaigns, but I'm pretty sure I don't want the government's current parties making those rules and frankly it doesn't seem to help elsewhere. I am more for an amendment that says groups (corp or union) cannot contribute money to politicians / political parties. Both corporations and unions are gatherings of people and no more deserving of protection than the other. The biggest problem with all that is the news media is run by corporations and the ink is still going to be there. I'm afraid the second cycle is going to be with us for a long while.

maxerickson2• 12 years ago

That seems like it might have some negative effects on the pool of people willing to take those jobs.

One thing that would probably help but will never happen would be to figure out how to make committee chairs service positions that had less influence over the output of the committee than the other members.

spikels• 12 years ago

Term limits seem like a good idea but have been shown over and over again at the state and local level not to work. What happens is that power moves to unelected party bosses who control the sources of money.

Sorry but there are no simple technical fixes. As long as politicians have these powers special interests will find a way to influence them. In my opinion the only thing that will help are limits on political power.

jobu• 12 years ago

Term limits would help in some ways, but as another poster mentioned it can give even more power to those that control the political money.

The most interesting proposal I've heard is to give tax rebates for political contributions. If you agree with the SCOTUS ruling that money equals speech then giving everyone some cash to spend on politics might give a voice to the masses.

larrydag2• 12 years ago

I wonder if the original framers of Constitutions around the world thought that one day the lawyers would ultimately rule public policy.

rayiner7• 12 years ago

I don't know about around the world, but about two-thirds of the framers of the U.S. Constitution were lawyers. The rest were businessmen of some sort (counting owning large-scale farms as a business). Doesn't seem like an appreciable change in who sets the tone for public policy, although I think if anything the power has shifted more towards businessmen.

larrydag2• 12 years ago

I wonder how that lawyer ratio has changed over the years with members of U.S. Congress. I'm guessing not a whole lot. Is it me or is the trial lawyer lobby the most powerful in Washington, D.C.?

afarrell5• 12 years ago

I never understand the surprise some people have that most of the people writing laws are the people who went to school to study how laws work.

Are they also similarly surprised and dismayed that many of the people writing software studied computer science?

digitalcreate• 12 years ago

As a small business owner, I applied for a patent that could protect my startup's key innovation. I am actually glad that the patent "reform" as shelved. IMO, it is a far bigger threat to small business patent holders that a tech industry giant would ignore / steal their IP, than to fall victim to a patent troll. If the proposed legislation goes through, simply trying to protect your own property could end up destroying you if you are forced to pay for the legal costs of the deep-pocketed industry player.

jp5552• 12 years ago

A patent is nothing until it is tested in court; which is very expensive, patent reform or not.

logicallee2• 12 years ago

But that's completely false isn't it, just like saying that copyright is nothing until it's tested in court?

There is absolutely a difference between a copyrighted image and a free to use image, even if I know the copyright holder is in no position to sue me. Likewise, there is a clear difference between someone's protected invention (if they have passed a very high bar over prior art, obviousness, etc) and the way the problem is always and usually solved. (If at all.)

I can respect a real patent just as easily as I can respect a copyright, and so it is hardly fair to say that a patent is nothing until it is tested in court.

mhandley• 12 years ago

As a startup, you can't afford to take on a tech industry giant as it is. You'll run out of money long before it clears the legal system. The only purpose for a patent to a startup is to make your company more valuable when you sell it to that tech industry giant.

c0ur7n3y• 12 years ago

Having a patent on your key-innovation does absolutely nothing to protect you from patent trolls demanding settlements from you for reams of overly-broad patents that never should have been granted in the first place. Under the current system, you pay.

gyardley3• 12 years ago

Grousing about oligarchs, special interests, and the political system as a whole is unproductive and misguided. After all, patent reform has already passed with huge bipartisan support in the House of Representatives.

Instead, you should focus on the politician most responsible for blocking patent reform - Harry Reid, and the power he wields as Senate Majority Leader. He might not be up for re-election until 2016, but your donations and votes can help remove him from his position as majority leader in November.

scotch_drinker2• 12 years ago

It's not a zero sum game. You can both grouse about those things AND contribute at the grassroots or whatever level you choose. It's entirely consistent to express dismay at the system as a whole in response to an article like this and do things to actual effect change.

If we only took action and never groused publicly, man, HN would be a boring place.

gyardley3• 12 years ago

Like I said, patent reform has already passed with huge bipartisan support in the House of Representatives.

It's clear here that the problems aren't with 'American democracy' (or any other incredibly-broad and incredibly-hard-to-change system) but with a few ever-so-ejectable politicians. We can agree to disagree, but I believe that blaming the problem on structural issues encourages apathy and helplessness in a way that focusing on Reid does not.

rosser4• 12 years ago

Because this is totally Reid's fault. Yeah, he's one of the tooliest tools that ever tooled, but blaming him for the structural problems in the American political system is myopic, at best.

gyardley3• 12 years ago

Yes, this is exactly the problem I'm talking about. The barrier to patent reform is not structural. It has a name and face, and when you handwave it away to 'structural problems' you just encourage everyone to do nothing.

rayiner7• 12 years ago

Complaining about oligarchs and special interests misses the mark, in my opinion. Last month, the following companies launched a group to oppose the proposed reforms: Apple, Microsoft, IBM, DuPont, Pfizer, Ford, and GE: http://partnershipforamericaninnovation.org.

That's a really broad spectrum of iconic American technology companies. These were joined by a number of research universities as well as groups representing small businesses that employ scientists and engineers.

It's easy to take an internet company-centric view of the world and dismiss the whole opposition as "oligarchs and special interests." But think of it from the perspective of a Congressman or Congresswoman. He or she doesn't know that "Twitter is in, while Microsoft is out," so to speak. What they know is that Microsoft is an American company that employs 100,000 people, more than Google, Twitter, Yahoo!, and Facebook combined. From their perspective, the opposition isn't "oligarchs and special interests." They're a broad swath of what they perceive as the relevant stakeholders: American companies and universities engaged in R&D that employ lots of scientists and engineers and create lots of "next-generation STEM jobs."

The whole political machinery of the U.S., on both sides of the aisle, is committed to the technology sector being an engine for job creation going forward. That doesn't just mean the internet sector, but also pharma, biotechnology, automotive, energy, etc. These are the sectors Washington is counting on to replace the jobs Silicon Valley is automating away. When a list of key companies in each of these sectors oppose reforms, and say that they will hamper job creation, then it will be very difficult to convince members of Congress that the reforms are a good thing overall.

The first set of reforms passed because there was broad buy-in from the technology sector as a whole. Any future reforms will require more buy-in from the broader industry than exists right now.

danielweber• 12 years ago

Microsoft is an American company that employs 100,000 people, more than Google, Twitter, Yahoo!, and Facebook combined.

This is a key point. Whatever arguments you can make about the economic efficiency of IP laws[1], favoring the industry that employs a lot more people isn't "un-democratic." It's democracy, good and hard. [2] Those 100,000 people can easily outvote all the other companies. It's exactly the opposite of favoring the oligarchs, which would be the sharehodlers of GOOG, TWIT, YHOO, FACE.

[1] Those latter companies indeed make more with less workers, which to a first order approximation is what you want to encourage in the long term. It's not the final answer and there are good arguments to make the other way, like GOOG needing other people's IP in order to have something to index and put ads on top of.

[2] As my allusion to Mencken suggests, I really don't like populist arguments. But when defending the populists' jobs becomes "defending the oligarchs" I know I'm in some kind of bizarro world.

CurtHagenlocher2• 12 years ago

A few more numbers:

IBM: ~400,000 GE: ~300,000 Ford: ~180,000 Apple: ~80,000 Pfizer: ~78,000 DuPont: ~70,000

Additionally, I know that Microsoft almost another 100,000 people employed as "vendors". Furthermore, these are the kinds of stocks that tend to be widely held by e.g. pension funds and 401k programs, so their impact extends well beyond their employees.

Now to be fair, these employee counts are worldwide and not just in the United States -- and the interests of their management are not necessarily aligned with the interests of the employees. But it's important to have some perspective on the scales of things. Historically, Ford has done a lot more to raise the standard of living of the average American than Facebook has.

Disclosure: I work at Microsoft.

Joeri2• 12 years ago

Those companies are not voters. If the voters say A and all the PR departments of all companies say B then in a democracy A should happen, not B.

AnthonyMouse4• 12 years ago

Apple, Microsoft, IBM, DuPont, Pfizer, Ford, and GE

DuPont, Pfizer, Ford and GE are in industries that are not plagued by patent trolls. That they're against it tells you nothing about how it would affect them because they don't experience the problem the legislation solves, so it necessarily creates nothing but downside risk for them. No matter how small that risk is, requiring them to put their full support behind it in order to fix somebody else's problem is requiring reform to fail.

But it is also disingenuous to suggest that they are the major force against reform, because the bill is quite well targeted specifically at patent trolls. The downside risk for Pfizer et al is extremely small. They may not support it but it's hardly going to put them out of business if it passes. What it would do is put a huge number of patent trolls out of business (along with the lawyers that represent them), and in so doing save a huge number of jobs at the startups they would have extorted or bankrupted. Which is why everyone is saying that the trial lawyers are the ones that most wanted to kill reform -- because the trial lawyers are the ones that most wanted to kill reform.

angrybits• 12 years ago

The top story on their homepage is about how some Fox News anchor got arrested at an airport bar. I am not convinced that Mr. Reid will be fearing for his job as a result of this little stunt.

disdev• 12 years ago

Interesting to compare the Partnership for American Innovation with this list: http://www.bloomberg.com/infographics/2014-03-12/offshore-pr...

And, Apple and Microsoft have previously funded patent trolls (IV). And IBM has more than 50,000 patents and brings in over $1 billion annually in licensing revenue.

brokentone• 12 years ago

It's establishment politicians on both sides who receive massive lobbying efforts from big hollywood and the recording industry.

There is some young blood taking these issues seriously though: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-party-of...

lowbloodsugar2• 12 years ago

"The bipartisan compromise on patents was headed for a markup on Thursday. But Leahy suddenly took it off the table after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) intervened at the last minute, according to multiple people close to the negotiations."

Would these be multiple Republican people? Kill the bill and blame it on Reid! Twofer!

Not saying its true, just awed by the credulity of some of the comments here.

AnimalMuppet2• 12 years ago

That could work... if Reid was stupid. Stupid enough to be manipulated by the Republicans, and then stupid enough to just silently take the blame.

I don't think that Reid got where he is by being politically stupid. Therefore, I don't buy your scenario.

[Edit: I just re-read the parent, and realized the claim was that Republicans did the killing, not that they manipulated Reid into doing the killing. I still don't buy it.]

lowbloodsugar2• 12 years ago

"[It was Reid's fault] say numerous sources".

I'm not saying he did it. I'm not saying he didn't do it. I'm saying the washington post reported unnamed sources said Reid did it.

I think that's a pretty low bar of evidence, is all I'm saying.

Who’s behind the last-minute push to thwart patent reform?

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