Raymond Richman       -       Jesse Richman       -       Howard Richman

 Richmans' Trade and Taxes Blog

Michelle Malkin: U.S. harmonizes its patent laws with Europe
Howard Richman, 5/24/2015

In preparation for the Obamatrade deal with Europe, the United States has adopted Europe's anti-innovation patent laws. Michelle Malkin is on the story. She writes:

The AIA’s [America Invents Act's] primary agenda? “Harmonizing” our patent laws with the rest of the world to reward paper-pushers who are “first to file” at the patent office, instead of those who are “first to invent.” These and other measures enacted by Obama threaten to drive garage tinkerers and small inventors — the designers, engineers and builders of American prosperity — out of the marketplace. Longtime venture capitalist Gary Lauder noted that the first-to-file system has suppressed solo and small-business innovation in Europe and Japan. “The U.S. gets 10 times the angel and venture capital of Western Europe — which recently declared an ‘innovation emergency,'” Lauder observed. “So why are we harmonizing with them? They should be harmonizing with us.”

America's patent laws have been moving in this direction for years, due to foolish decisions by the DC federal court. More and more, patents are being filed, not by those who are developing new inventions, but by those who wish to sue those who eventually develop the new inventions.

Inventors should, at the very least, be forced to produce working prototypes of their invention before they can apply for patents. I would like to see a much tougher patent process in place, but also one which includes automatic grants to produce the invention whenever a patent is awarded.

Which American President Holds a Patent?

By the way, Malkin includes a fun fact in her article. She writes:

In 1790, [our founding fathers] created and refined a decentralized, market-based patent system that added the “fuel of interest” to the “fire of genius,” in the words of America’s only president to hold a patent, Abraham Lincoln.

I looked up Lincoln's invention and found a fun Smithsonian Magazine article about it:

Lincoln's patent, No. 6,469, was granted on May 22, 1849, for a device for "Buoying Vessels Over Shoals," when he was back in Springfield practicing law after one term as an Illinois congressman in Washington. His idea, to equip boats with inflatable bellows of "india-rubber cloth, or other suitable water-proof fabric" levered alongside the hull, came as a result of river and lake expeditions he made as a young man, ferrying people and produce on the Mississippi and the Great Lakes. At least twice his boats ran aground on sandbars or hung up on other obstacles; given the Big River's ever-shifting shallows, such potentially dangerous misadventures happened often. Freeing a beached vessel usually involved the laborious unloading of cargo until the boat rode high enough to clear the snag....

Herndon wrote about Lincoln bringing the wooden boat model into the law office, "and while whittling on it would descant on its merits and the revolution it was destined to work in steamboat navigation."

You can view Lincoln's prototype of his invention next time you go to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington.

Comment by Ron V., 5/27/2015:

marI am an avid reader of your articles, because they contain common sense. Obama abandons common sense with his arrogance.

Your informative articles also include others, also with knowledge, fact and common sense.

Just a side note on Michelle Malkin. She recently  made a comment on H. Clinton’s campaign speeches while watching a video clip of Hillary at a small business. She said that Hillary spreads it on thicker than a John Deere manure spreader. I really like her spirit.

Your article once again is spot on. Eddie Rickenbacker once had an automobile factory which included four wheel brakes on all of his vehicles. His business failed due to his competitors that only had two wheel brakes and with the help of the news media, proclaimed that a four wheel brake system was dangerous. With that said, we know the end of that story. One can only imagine, if Mr. Rickenbacker had a patent on his four wheel braking system back then.        

Comment by M, 6/4/2015:

Is this new Patent law some sort of payoff to the Trial Lawyers Association?