Following Backlash, White House Realizes Guy Who Opposed Obama's Own Patent Reform Plan Shouldn't Lead The Patent Office

from the how-did-it-even-get-that-far? dept

A little over a week ago, it came out that President Obama was on the verge of appointing a former pharmaceutical industry exec, who had spent years fighting against the very kind of patent reform that President Obama supported, to be head of the USPTO. It was a little odd how the news came out -- as it seemed to be clearly "leaked" to a few folks in the press that Phil Johnson was likely to be the nominee. However, the move was pretty quickly condemned, and now the same folks are saying that the White House has changed its mind, and will not offer the position to Johnson.

At the very least, that suggests that the "leak" of his name was something of a trial balloon, to see how it would go over -- and the vocal rejection (including by big patent reform supporter Senator Chuck Schumer) made the White House realize that it would be in for a pretty angry fight over the nomination. Hopefully, the next nominee isn't someone who has vocally fought against the President's own position on patent reform...

Filed Under: director, patent reform, patent trolls, pharmaceuticals, phil johnson, uspto
Companies: johnson & johnson

Movie Director Flattered That Someone Camcorded And Uploaded His Movie

from the that's-the-spirit dept

While the folks back in Hollywood have been acting as though people with camcorders were a huge threat to the movie business, it appears that some folks outside of the Hollywood machine recognize that it's not such a bad thing at all. TorrentFreak has the story of a popular Norwegian director who seems flattered that people camcorded his movie and put it online:

"I think it's perfectly fine that some people choose to post the movie online. It shows that people are interested in it.... In the IT society of today it's naive to think that this wouldn't happen. We consider it a huge compliment."

In fact, it appears his only real problem is that the quality of recording isn't so great, though he notes that hopefully this will drive more people to the theater to see a better quality version. It's nice to see more folks in the movie business recognizing that unauthorized copies aren't the end of the world.

Filed Under: bittorrent, camcording, director, file sharing, movies, norway