David Plouffe Gives Preliminary Response Concerning Obstacles To Innovation
from the did-they-really-listen dept
Tony was the first of a bunch of you to send over the news that President Obama's top advisor, David Plouffe, has put up a blog post providing a preliminary overview of what he "heard" via the Ask the Advisor question, which we wrote about last week, concerning "obstacles to innovation." The only indication that responses like mine were read was a brief mention about how some people complained about how the government, and particularly patent policy, got in the way of innovation:Many respondents felt that too much government regulation stifled businesses and innovators and that the patent process and intellectual property laws are broken.Unfortunately, rather than listening to why today's patent system is a real and significant problem, it appears that Plouffe is using this to score political points for his boss:
In his State of the Union Address, the President called for a government-wide review of regulations to find and fix those regulations that place unnecessary burdens on businesses. Indeed, in his Budget, the President put forward a set of common sense reforms to our patent system that will make it easier for innovators to move ideas to market and foster growth.The problem is that his suggestions for patent reform do not fix the system, and in some cases make it much worse. In fact, I pointed to numerous studies and research in my response that explained this.
Plouffe claims he'll have much more on this topic of encouraging innovation, so we'll wait and hope that perhaps the administration will really listen this time, and not just paper over the real problems of the patent system with reform policies that won't help (and might actually make the system worse).
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Filed Under: david plouffe, innovation, obama, obstacles
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There is a balance between innovation with less patents (or none at all) versus the innovation and big time investments that come in a world with patents.
The government isn't going to get up and suddenly toss out patents just to "give it a try".
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[citation needed]
If anything, the most populated countries (and their citizens, which constitutes most people) are against things like patents and their innovation doesn't seem to be hindered. Even Jefferson noted how countries without patents were just as innovative as those with them.
"The government isn't going to get up and suddenly toss out patents just to "give it a try"."
No, they should do it to stimulate innovation. Instead, they allow patents to exist just to serve corporations that contribute to their campaigns.
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If anything, the most populated countries (and their citizens, which constitutes most people) are against things like patents and their innovation doesn't seem to be hindered.
You would mean places like China and India, where people's average yearly salary is about the same as a US auto worker's daily take home pay? Yeah, I can see where they don't see the value of patents, there isn't anything in it for them.
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That minority, put millions out of a job in America, increased their expenses and are sucking the country dry.
Look at the software market place it was bumming without patents suddenly they got stuck there and are doing nothing new it took competition to make them start again and that competition came in the way of open source software, now it is time to do the same thing for hardware and other things, including the idiots from the entertainment industry that are being used as a shock absorber to take the brunt of the anger out of the real people behind it.
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Your dishonesty makes it hard to take anything you say seriously.
The citation need refers to the part where you said
"the reality is that most people just don't see things your way."
"You would mean places like China and India, where people's average yearly salary is about the same as a US auto worker's daily take home pay?"
So only the opinions of the rich count? How condescending.
"Yeah, I can see where they don't see the value of patents, there isn't anything in it for them."
So are you suggesting that patents only benefit the rich? Well, duh. They don't help innovation and they don't help the generla public, it's all about what's in it for the rich.
Seriously, your arrogant attitude reveals your true motives.
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Please do continue to use examples that prove Mike's point that patents stifle innovation though as you so kindly stated those 2 places without strict patent laws are 2 of the fastest growing countries in the world.
Have you ever even thought about the sheer logic of your position supporting patents? Patents are an artificial monopoly that removes competition. Since economic models of supply versus demand elude you lets take a look at evolution. The strong survive, the weak perish. Each species fills a niche for its ecosystem. If that species leaves or dies off something springs up to fill the ecosystem. In every place we've tried to implement a control, such as kudzu for ground cover in the southern states, invasive tree species through most of the US and a myriad other such occurrences the local ecosystem has often been decimated and a new species has held monopoly. You support killing variation of species by introducing something without competition. Nothing gets better or stronger, just more pervasive and it affects everything it comes into contact with.
American industry is a shadow of what it was, businesses prosper, people suffer. The government is a body of people meant to protect citizens, not corporations. The people are the consumers, businesses are the pushers. Government is meant to protect the consumers, businesses are already protected far more than they need. Corporate welfare, bank bailouts, tax breaks for the rich that the poor eat. Give me a break...if you cared anything for protecting business you'd be against patents, no one who creates needs them. If they did there wouldn't be such a thing as open source and freeware.
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Most of the general population haven't really thought about it - and tend to swallow the pro-IP line uncritically. Those who have thought about it a bit tend to be anti-IP unless they believe that they personally benefit from it.
Those who have thought about it more tend to be more anti-IP than the general population and those who have done proper, independent, research even more so.
The mission of this blog is to educate - and so as this is successful the anti-IP view will prevail more generally.
Government tends to be somewhat short term and pragmatic about these things so in times of plenty they tend to go along with the pro-IP lobby. However in a real emergency I guarantee that the government will pretty much toss out IP compeletely (with a vague promise of future compensation). This happened in the UK in WW2 when the state was really threatened and it would happen again if the circumstances recurred.
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In terms of basic and applied research I would be surprised if the US was not at the top of the list in most high-tech fields.
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If you liked this...
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Shocking!
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Food for thought.
Quote:
Source:
The Heritage Foundation: Technology Explains Drop in Manufacturing Jobs
Published on October 12, 2010 by James Sherk
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Re: Food for thought.
"Sarbanes–Oxley Act imposes large accounting costs on publicly traded firms while providing little benefit to shareholders."
One problem with many of these anti trust acts is that they're selectively enforced against companies that the government and many big corporations don't like, like Google, but companies that are much more deserving of being prosecuted (like the RIAA/MPAA, like patent trolls, like cable companies, like taxi cab monopolies, etc...) are mostly ignored. The selective enforcement of laws effectively makes those laws only apply to those that the government selectively enforces them against.
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And lawyers never want to see other lawyers who are unable to afford that second Porsche.
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Will probably be similar to the new open, transparent Government.
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jobs
Small entities create the lion's share of new jobs. According to recent studies by the Kauffman Foundation and economists at the U.S. Census Bureau, “startups aren’t everything when it comes to job growth. They’re the only thing.” Yet, thus far all efforts by Congress and the executive branch have nearly ignored small entity needs and input. Any policy that does not include them will jeopardize the country's future job creation and innovative potential. What we need is a federal government who is less of a rubber stamp for campaign contribution paying large corporate infringers who ship jobs overseas and more in tune to small entity needs.
Just because they call it “reform” doesn’t mean it is. Patent reform is a fraud on America.
Please see http://truereform.piausa.org/ for a different/opposing view on patent reform.
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