The Story Of Patent Reform: How Lobbyists & Congress Works... And How The Public & Innovation Get Screwed
from the sad dept
We've noted how there's suddenly been a lot of mainstream interest in the massive problems of the patent system, thanks in part to mainstream media operations like This American Life doing stories that expose just how damaging the patent system is today. And yet, despite all of this, we've been pointing out for a while that the patent reform bill making its way through Congress is useless. It does nothing to address the problems of the system and has a few things that will make matters worse. And it bizarrely includes clear favors to Wall St., protecting them from a few bad patents, while leaving everyone else -- including Silicon Valley -- to fend for themselves.So why isn't Congress actually fixing the patent system?
Zach Carter over at the Huffington Post has an absolutely fantastic detailed look at the politics and corruption behind the patent reform bill. It's long, but worth reading. However, the tl;dr version is: patent reform is entirely about lobbyists and special interests. No one -- and I do mean no one -- appears to have any concern whatsoever for the actual impact of the patent system or patent reform on actual innovation. The story is about as depressing as you would imagine, but is a great primer on the nature of regulatory capture and how certain industries influence regulations, while the actual public and the people most impacted by the legislation is left out. Here's just a snippet:
DataTreasury's lawsuits are handled by Texas trial-law kingpins Nix, Patterson & Roach. In the 2010 elections, the firm was the third-largest contributor to the Democratic National Committee, pouring in $179,000, behind only Google and the Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. When Republican lawmakers bemoan "Democrats and trial lawyers," they're talking about Nix Patterson and a handful of other big law firms.Nobody comes out of this story looking good. Everyone comes out of it looking corrupt. And all of us suffer. Though a few lawyers are making out like bandits.
Nix Patterson brought in an even bigger fundraising champion to lobby Democrats for DataTreasury: Ben Barnes. He and his wife Melanie have dumped $379,000 of their own money into politics over the years, according to Center for Responsive Politics data, with every penny going to Democrats. Barnes is also one of the most influential fundraising bundlers in politics. In the first half of 2009 alone, he pulled together $630,450 for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- more than anyone else, according to the Sunlight Foundation.
Barnes is not a man congressional Democrats keep waiting. And he's previously worked directly with Pelosi, who attended a fundraiser at Barnes' Austin home in 2009. Pelosi's office did not respond to inquiries on her meetings with the fundraising giant, but when asked by HuffPost whether he had won over Pelosi on Section 18, Barnes said that he had.
"Oh, yeah," Barnes told HuffPost. "For some time I've worked with DataTreasury that has the patent all the banks are worked up about."
By revolting on the patent bill, Pelosi was throwing in her lot with Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Dan Boren (D-Okla.), Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) and Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who circulated a letter on June 15 urging their colleagues to oppose Section 18, saying the language "carves out a special niche" for Wall Street that would "stifle innovation."
This odd bipartisan coalition was going up against the entire New York delegation, led by Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), chairman of the corporate-friendly New Democrat caucus, who declined to comment for this story. As the behind-the-scenes struggle intensified, DataTreasury promoted the idea that Section 18 was a covert bailout for the banks. If courts ruled that the new law amounted to an unconstitutional taking of property -- a very big 'if' -- then taxpayers would ultimately have to pay back the bank winnings resulting from the bill.
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Filed Under: congress, corruption, lobbyists, patent reform, patents
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They'll figure it out
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Yup got it.
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Intergalactic DUH!!!
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Sometimes I pity them.
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As always, if you start with your conclusion, you can almost always write your way back to the intro and make it look credible. But the piece is pretty one sided, don't you think?
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Yup got it.
Would you be the same Anonymous Coward who wrote all those corporate shill. comments?
Yup got it
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It would be foolish to assume that everyone else uses your methods.
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Sorry, I'm not following your argument. If he's anti-big-media as you entail, why post about the political coalition of both Democrats and Republicans that makes this regulatory capture possible?
If he's anti-government, why criticize the fact that our government is indeed flawed where they "work together" (as the Democratic byline seems to be right now) with all parties to pass laws?
And if he has an axe to grind, why grind it by showing the flaws of the patent system that a number of people that aren't supposedly "anti-media", "anti-government", (such as Google) instead of going true rebel and asking the populace to rise up?
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Everyone in DC /is/ corrupt.
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More Than IP Reform
Oh, did I mentioned that no corporation should be able to own another, either directly through stock or indirectly through some financial instrument like derivatives. Only people can own a corporation, who can do their own political campaigning, personally.
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Re: Everyone in DC /is/ corrupt.
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Welcome to the Internet age. The press was always biased; it's just now we know about it. Rather than trying to hide behind the paper shield of "objectivity", the new forms of journalism are up front about their opinions. The problem of course is that you have to actually think for yourself instead of lapping up what The Media regurgitates at you. And in case the point is not clear, just because someone is expressing an opinion, it doesn't mean their facts are incorrect. If you have a problem with the facts, then attack the facts.
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Re: Re: Everyone in DC /is/ corrupt.
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Re: Re: Everyone in DC /is/ corrupt.
Overall he's definitely an asset to the site.
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Why would he do such a thing? To make it easier for you to hand-wave his claims away because you are incapable of making real arguments, of course. He feels bad for you, so he gave you an easy ad hominem to spout.
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Re: More Than IP Reform
These contribution laws are like the contraband screening of a prison, except these are designed by the prisoners.
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Re: Re: Re: Everyone in DC /is/ corrupt.
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Re: Re: More Than IP Reform
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Second, Mike qualifies it as a good example of showing "regulatory capture". It's a bullshit claim, because almost any regulated industry by nature has it's representatives, lobbyists, and the like. That isn't anything like regulatory capture. It's the way a democratic system works. The companies and industries don't get to vote in the elections, do they?
There is no grand coalition here, only both sides understanding what needs to be done and moving forward with something that is obvious enough to all concerned.
He attempts to paint the politicians as beholden to the special interest groups, but in reality they are just clearly understanding the needs of industry. Trying to imply that everything is done because one guy worked on Pelosi's fund raising is crap, because Pelosi doesn't have that much power anymore anyway. He is attempting to raise the stink level where no stink exists.
He started with the conclusion, that much is clear. It's probably why it plays so well on Techdirt, because he is giving you guys the answer you want to hear, not the actual truth.
Oh for the anonymous below: You can use "facts" in many ways, and cherry picking details and only playing one part of a story can make everything you say true, but still not tell the truth. Just because he uses "facts" in his story doesn't mean he actually told you what happened, he just picked some dots and connected them to match the conclusion desired.
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Re: Re: Re: More Than IP Reform
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There was once such a planet - it was called World War 2. At least in the UK nobody bothered too much with patents when we were fighting for our lives.
Result
Jet Engine
Computer
Nuclear Technology
and many more - in short the biggest burst of innovation ever to hit the planet.
There are other example - eg the Italian Pharma Industry before 1979 or the comparison between aircraft development in the US and Europe during the period 1908-1917. They all show fewer patents=more innovation. So your calim there is no evidence is simply wrong. There is plenty and it backs our case.
If you don't believe us then why not suggest we do an experiment - create a patent free zone and see what happens. What are you scared of?
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I hope more people get involved in the political process
I hope articles like this bring more members of Gen X and Gen Y in political activism. If you want to have as much influence as the Tea Partiers, you are going to have to get organized in a significant way. Talking music piracy isn't going to do it. Campaigning on lower drug costs, DNA ownership, and GMO issues in food are better issues to energize voters (not that the voters themselves will be able to do much alone; corporate money is what still matters most). Form your own lobbying organization and start paying politicians yourselves to back the laws you want.
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Of course it is mike's job to put his full support against someone who is so hell-bent on destroying freedom and children, why should I have to read fifteen paragraphs of pedophillic nazi tripe when I can just call mike filthy names in the comment section instead?
-Every AC post ever
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I suspect this quote is from an Anonymous Coward who is a part of Big IP Business.
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All without any patent or copyright protection.
One might also point out that this planet had no copyright or patents until the last few hundred years. The Bible, Greek tragedies, Shakespeare, the Koran, King Author, Most of Newton's work, Galliao's work... all done without patents or copyrights.
We have no reason to believe patents would have helped the development of technology at all in the past, and no reason to believe it helps today.
Can you even name one product that came to market *because* of a patent? One inventor that was able to produce a product because of patents that could not have without them? Just one?
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1.we wont take money lobbying
2.we are for the people and willnot take corp money
3.we will limit all donation to ?? $1000
otherwise we all will vote for the same two asshole parties and the cycle of broken washington and broken patents continues
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New Idea
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If people need to write something, write laws that they want enacted and vote on the people who will enact those laws for them.
We the people would gain much more respect if we started to do that instead of writing complaints to people who probably don't even bother to read those.
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It's like the lawmakers have forgotten that we don't have to be a two party government.
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Re: I hope more people get involved in the political process
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People let those clowns hijack the system and people may not realize that they too can write laws and they have the power to put people there to enact those laws and it doesn't matter who they put there as long as that person gets a support group that can assist him/her on doing the job, it also can solve the problem of root rot by not letting any one person stay in congress more then one cycle.
How are lobbyists going to lobby the entire population for little special interests? Will they feel comfortable approaching a new representative that they never dealt with before and bribing him or offering things without knowing if he will tell everybody or not?
You the people got the power, you got the means to organize, now people just need to have the will to act to accomplish change, real change, not the empty promises of politicians.
Don't let them write the law for you, go there and write your own laws and put to a public vote to gather people around.
Those that have enough votes can be enacted those that don't will never get enough people to put somebody there to be voted on.
Politicians are supposed to be the people's socket puppets, not the corporations, not the little special interests, but the whole of society.
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Truth is truth, regardless of its popularity
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You don't have to assume anything, you can look at the massive amount of evidence and decide that there's very little good about the current state of the patent system and quite possibly patents in general.
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Patent Reform
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Nobody's safe from this...
I'll note that this article and the Richard Hofstadter quote brings to mind this quote:
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session." --Gideon J. Tucker in Final Accounting in the Estate of A. B. (1866)
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Re: Re: Re: Everyone in DC /is/ corrupt.
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Ok... So what good has come out of patents? How much has patent law innovated when you have companies such as Intellectual Ventures using it to control the market, and make smaller businesses pay them? How is the free market really free when Microsoft lost against i4i and has to pay them for a very vague patent that they supposedly infringed upon? Where is your proof that the patent system has done *any* good for business in general?
" I know that is a popular version of the truth around here, but one that has never been proven (because nobody can show us a planet where we work without patents, so we don't know what it would be like without the system)."
Socratically (Yay, new word!) speaking, your argument seems to be deep in sophistry. There's been times that countries have gone without patent law and it's been proven that they innovated quite well. We also have individuals such as Michael Meurer and James Bessen who say patents discourage innovation.
Economically, the settlements on these patents deter innovation in those fields. The evidence that patents are good is overwhelmingly against that notion. So again, where's the good?
" Mike qualifies it as a good example of showing "regulatory capture". It's a bullshit claim, because almost any regulated industry by nature has it's representatives, lobbyists, and the like. That isn't anything like regulatory capture. It's the way a democratic system works. The companies and industries don't get to vote in the elections, do they?"
AT&T has regulatory capture on the broadband market through duopoly with Comcast. The better option is competition. The democratic system does NOT work through regulatory capture. It comes with giving consumers a choice between your network/product/entertainment choices versus someone else. If they choose yours, keep doing what you're doing. If someone else's, improve your offering. Regulatory capture is anathema to progress. That is basic knowledge at this point.
Also, to refute your last point, AT&T is the largest provider of funds, to Democrats and Republicans to get legislation favorable to their duopoly, in the US. How the system works, they can donate a lot more than an individual and if it's true that Senators spend $3900 a day (Maplight.org) then they would be happy to get AT&T's $5000 contributions along with "donated" computers and equipment to staff.
"He attempts to paint the politicians as beholden to the special interest groups, but in reality they are just clearly understanding the needs of industry. "
False. The needs of the small business owners is a less cluttered system where they can thrive instead of being bullied by the likes of IV. If it's better to sue than to innovate, as Apple is doing to Samsung, then there is a problem here. The system is bad. As it stands, he's showing the flaws.
"He is attempting to raise the stink level where no stink exists."
Where, the lobbying which pays for her? Why don't we look at that for a second? Link. Okay, here's Opensecrets. It displays all the numbers for lobbying power. And every year, as more and more companies lobby to Congress for time, lobbying power and expenditure has increased, even in a recession. So far, the number of lobbyists is almost equal. So the stink raised for lobbying? It seems to be a valid point so far. And in all this, I've yet to hear about consumer concerns. If anything consumers get form letters.
"It's probably why it plays so well on Techdirt, because he is giving you guys the answer you want to hear, not the actual truth."
So what is the truth? That lobbyists aren't allowing public concerns in Congress? That somehow, all of the data is wrong? What exactly are you trying to implicate by saying people aren't getting it, when there's a mountain of evidence against:
A) Patent law being "Good"
B) Lobbyists control the vote
C) The public is being screwed no matter what?
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Re: Everyone in DC /is/ corrupt.
Politicians are also attacked for almost anything they do.. if anything goes wrong (which is very possible because of the interdependency of so many players and factors) or takes too long to pan out (ie, short v. long term strategizing). One major thing that might go wrong is that the economy will hurt or that there will be correlations with someone out there (say a foreigner) gaining just as it appears we are losing. If you took an active position, many will blame you regardless of the logic if enough money pushes that other view.
Money does have a corrupting influence (including the fear of having loads of it and lies be pushed against you come election time), but it isn't the totality of the problem.
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Careful there. Talking about your employers like that is a good way to get replaced.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Everyone in DC /is/ corrupt.
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Heh, that little comment is pretty revealing about how you IP people think. You don't go around telling lies, do you? Oh no, you just have different "versions" of the truth! Hilarious.
because nobody can show us a planet where we work without patents, so we don't know what it would be like without the system
Because there have always been patents everywhere, huh? What's that, just another of your versions of the truth?
I'm not even going to bother with the rest of your comment.
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If you *like* the smell of sh*t, that is.
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Re: They'll figure it out
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No, you just have to avoid assuming that there is something good about patents.
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Its almost cute you think that's surprising
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Re: Re: Everyone in DC /is/ corrupt.
Politicians don't write laws. I think you're thinking of lobbyists and Congressional staffers.
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giveaway for banks
Just because they call it “reform” doesn’t mean it is.
The patent bill is nothing less than another monumental federal giveaway for banks, huge multinationals, and China and an off shoring job killing nightmare for America. Even the leading patent expert in China has stated the bill will help them steal our inventions. Who are the supporters of this bill working for??
Patent reform is a fraud on America. This bill will not do what they claim it will. What it will do is help large multinational corporations maintain their monopolies by robbing and killing their small entity and startup competitors (so it will do exactly what the large multinationals paid for) and with them the jobs they would have created. Yet 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.” This bill is a wholesale slaughter of US jobs. Those wishing to help in the fight to defeat this bill should contact us as below.
Small entities and inventors have been given far too little voice on this bill when one considers that they rely far more heavily on the patent system than do large firms who can control their markets by their size alone. The smaller the firm, the more they rely on patents -especially startups and individual inventors.
Please see http://truereform.piausa.org/ for a different/opposing view on patent reform.
http://docs.piausa.org/
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It's all about politics and big government helping big buiness
In the case the banks. A high powered law firm with ties to the democratic party is helping a little guy. Yes that hurts the republicans supporters on the banking world. But this seems rather far fetched. Befor Datatreasury technology check archiving cost were over 1 dollar per check. With this technology, Datatreasury asked for 1-3 cents per check
The banks want it for free. Bank lobbies now are negotiating for .005 per check. This is a patent issue. Not a participant issue
It is a pate
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FTFY
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Re: Re: They'll figure it out
You forgot the abolition of slavery. That's when all this federal meddling really picked up.
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Re: giveaway for banks
The smaller the firm, the less they rely on patents -especially startups and individual inventors.
FTFY
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Hahahahah. You don't get it do you? Politicians never were sock puppets for the "people" (a rather manipulative term which the word in reality is actually talking about the wealthy few not the working classes like us) but rather for their own class interests which are the wealthy few (the corporations) which has always been all along...have you people realized that yet?
Most people forget the system we're living under which Capitalism and what is designed for and who benefits from it....
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Section 18
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Keep Jobs in U.S.A.
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Current Patent Reform will really kill many jobs
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