IdeaJacked

The Political and Economic Impacts of Patent Competition and IdeaJacking in the International Arena: A Commentary

Several unfortunate conditions in today’s global trade arena are making gifted inventors and creators of the arts fearful that the integrity of their work cannot be protected. If left unchecked, I worry that these circumstances could very well motivate inventors to keep their critical ideas and creative works secret and proprietary, which would in turn deny the knowledge transfer that derives from the patent publishing and copyright processes and stifle the advancement of inventions and the creative arts.
I would like to call attention to three of these threats that are particularly serious and should be dealt with quickly by diverse groups from the international community.
The most serious and by far the biggest threat is China’s cavalier intellectual property philosophy that combined with a lack of commercial trading ethics and judicial integrity in the country has created a global business crisis. The second threat comes from Europe, where policies allow granted patents to be challenged, prior to the issuance of a final patent award, at little cost or risk to protesting companies. This practice allows entrenched and powerful businesses to suppress and potentially squash the introduction of brilliant AAA ideas and even helpful grade A or grade B inventions. A third threat is brewing here in the U.S., where the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has created a multi-year backlog of patent examinations, prompting a new generation of U.S. computer technology oligarchs to seek the establishment of a public review system of patent applications. As it has in Europe, this approach will put innovators of disruptive technologies at a complete competitive disadvantage against the incumbent oligarchs.
Indeed, one of the primary reasons the U.S. is a world leader in per capita wealth has been our innova- tors’ culture of creating a continuous stream of mega-revenue generating companies like IBM, Xerox, Intel, Genentech, Qualcomm, Cisco, Amazon, eBay and Google. These companies, as well as tens of thousands of others, have succeeded in great part because of confidence in the American judicial and patent system. These companies have prospered because we have historically enjoyed a trusted system of inventive own- ership and judicial enforcement of contracts, especially public intellectual property rights (such as patents, trademarks and copyrights) and non-public or proprietary intellectual property. The multi-trillion dollar question: Can we sustain our historical system of inventive ownership in a world swamped with ethical- trade challenges?

Comments Archives

Taiwanese counterfeiters, not content with stealing solely the name and products of the Japanese electronics company, NEC, orchestrate a wide-scale theft operation involving factories, warehouses, and businesses under the stolen name — not to mention fake NEC business cards, product research, and official-looking documents.

In the age of outsourcing, Farouk Shami, inventor of the popular Chi hair-straightening iron, is “insourcing” his company from China back to the United States in an effort to combat piracy and recover the tarnished reputation of his brand.

Credited with popularizing snowboarding as a sport and launching the snowboard industry, Burton Corporation has expanded to produce snowboard boots, bindings, and helmets as well as a clothing and accessory line. Despite taking precautions in the form of patents and registered trademarks in the United States and around the globe, Burton has discovered the wide-scale theft of the company’s intellectual property in Asia and the U.S.