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Opinions/Editorials Title: Three Reasons Why the Senate Just Made a 95-5 Mistake on the Patent Bill 'm amazed that the US Senate just voted 95-5 to destroy our patent system and, arguably, unconstitutionally undermine one the pillars of our nation's past two centuries of unparalleled prosperity. Despite big opposition from Silicon Valley, the Senate just voted 95-5 to overhaul the US Patent filing system, which has been at the core of America's lead in innovation and technology since our founding. The bill the Senate just passed will change our patent award system from a first-invented to a first-filed, which will put America "on par" with the rest of the world, so far as I know. The problem with this is that in the rest of the world, inventors get screwed. Their first-filed system gives a huge advantage to corporations, who can lawyer up and litigate their way to dominating the patent award process. In America, we've always favored the inventor, and even given inventors a one-year grace period to tinker and perfect their inventions. That's why there isn't anywhere near as much innovation coming out of places like France and Germany and Norway as there is going on in places like Silicon Valley, and why most every great invention you can think of came from somewhere in America. Our system favored the little guy. The inventor. The risk-taker. The tinkerer. Wanna know why that was? Because the founders thought it was so important that they put it right there in the Constitution - Article 1, Section 8 - giving Congress the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." What the Senate just approved 95-5 is arguably unconstitutional. The law they passed will virtually guarantee a large number of inventors get screwed out of their rightful rewards by replacing invented-first with filed-first. I'm not sure they have the authority under the Constitution to do that. That's reason #1. Reason 2 is that this bill will, over time, kill off the innovation machine in the United States that has allowed us the prosperity to, let's face it, feed, clothe, and generally provide for much of the world. Whether we do such a good job of it, or whether we even should be doing it, is another matter of debate, but the fact is that this bill will turn us into another Europe, where inventors work for huge corporations, and invent things that fit into the company's business plan, and you can bet your butt that Thomas Edison's invention of the light bulb would never have happened if he had been working for a candlemaker, and Microsoft could never have happened of Bill Gates and company were doing their tinkering for IBM. I could go on, but we don't want or need that in the US. That's reason #2. The last reason is, frankly, an appeal to liberals, to whom the first two arguments will make no sense whatsoever. C'mon guys, can't you see how this screws the little guy? How can you support favoring huge corporations, who probably drink blood at their board meetings and barbecue homeless people for fun, over the garage inventor whose endless tinkerings and creations often never amount to anything, but often enough wind up changing the way we live our lives and helping us all? Contact your Congresscritter and tell them you don't want America to become Europe, and that they need to (take your pick) honor the Constitution, and stand up for the little guy. Kill this bill.
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