The Hill Opinion: Weakened patent system causes U.S. to slip as a global leader of IP protection, by Russell Slifer
This post originally appeared in The Hill on August 4, 2017.
The U.S. Patent system has been under attack for over 12 years and the resultant damage is extensive. The U.S. patent system has fallen behind much of the world and the eroded value of patents has reached a point where corporate leaders are questioning the need to seek patent protection for new inventions.
The damage began with lobbying in the early 2000’s to address abusive patent litigation that was causing harm to U.S. companies. Congress, judges and the American public were told about unscrupulous litigants that were abusing what was characterized as a flawed patent system that did not issue perfect patents all the time.