AFL-CIO Issues Report Cards Scoring Performance of Members of Congress. Patent Deform is now part of the scoring system. Democrats are going to be reluctant to vote for patent deform when doing so is going to adversely affect their score.

I expect that we will have another month to six weeks of the bill going through its death throws, but it will then expire.

At that point the Professional Inventors Alliance (PIAUSA.org) will be looking at which of the proponents of the bill might be held accountable in upcoming elections. We would like to add to our growing list of Utah inventors.

Perhaps next year we can address the real problem. Poor examiner working conditions is driving very high attrition. We only have one third as many examiners as we need. While USPTO management collects fees based on patent complexity, examiners are allocated a strict 20.5 hours for each patent application no matter the complexity.

USPTO management is either grossly incompetent and/or corrupt. A cynic might surmise that USPTO management is perfectly willing to promote the interests of thieving transnational companies in the hope of improving their post USPTO employment opportunities.

Problems at the USPTO are due to classic labor issues and PIAUSA is extremely pleased that a broad spectrum organized labor is recognizing this to be the core problem with the patent system.

The Professional Inventors Alliance (PIAUSA.org) has been working with the American Ingenuity Alliance for many years to save American ingenuity, jobs, and the tax base of our communities from the excesses and shortsightedness of transnational corporate greed.

PIAUSA is working hard to halt transnational corporations from stealing American inventor’s work and shipping it to slave wage countries. It is ironic that these hypocritical corporations constantly whine about theft of their intellectual property while they are systematically destroying independent and small business to facilitate theft of other’s patent properties. This practice is killing startup companies who could create decent paying jobs and a solid tax base which America desperately needs to replace jobs which these transnational corporations are exporting to low wage counties.

Furthermore, we believe that all employed inventors should receive a royalty in addition to their base pay and we believe that assignments should by law have to be renewed annually as part of the employee’s review. At this time companies stick a pile of papers in front of new employees to sign, including assignments and the assignments are open ended. When the employee starts producing inventions, often many years later, the assignment comes into play. Once the assignment is in force it is not a factor in ongoing wage and benefit discussions.

Even more egregious is the fact that companies use these outrageously broad assignment agreements with all employees, including those at the lowest pay scale such as secretaries and janitors. The result is that much of the time employees have jobs which have nothing to do with inventing which they are expected to do while producing an invention as unpaid overtime.

A side effect of this situation is that employees quickly learn that disclosing an invention is not in their interest. Surely this is an unintended consequence of short sighted and short-term gain oriented management. Can America afford to have this situation continue at a time when innovation has become so important to our competitiveness?

On a related matter, PIAUSA would also like to see the abomination which has been misnamed “free trade” turned into responsible and equitable trade. We recognize that globalization is inevitable, but we believe that it is long past time that management of this transition is taken from transnational corporations who have used it as cover to drive obscene profits at the expense of people in both developed and developing countries.

Ronald J. Riley,

Speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.patentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 9 pm EST

Lawrence B. Ebert
blog at IPBiz
April 4

Max, Andreas & Fanny keep it real in Sweden.