The Daily Caller Opinion: The Conservative Case Against Patent Reform, by Ken Blackwell
This post originally appeared in The Daily Caller on December 4, 2014.
After six years of Barack Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress pledging to “fix” every sector of the economy with one-size-fits-all Washington “solutions” (and failing miserably), you will never guess what some Republicans in Washington are planning to do in January when they get complete control of Capitol Hill. If you guessed that they’re planning to join the White House legislate a government takeover of another sector of our economy, you would be right.
After the attempts to “fix” health care and our financial system through big government overhauls, some are looking to rush into “patent reform” that would overhaul the entire system of patents, which is a critical part of our constitutional protection of property rights. There has been a great deal of speculation in the media and among pundits that Republicans may move quickly on this issue to demonstrate that they are willing to work with the president on an issue.
America’s position as a superpower on the global stage is tenuous, we continue to sputter through a recovery, our foreign policy is in shambles, the promise of Obama’s executive amnesty is looming, the VA is rebuilding, the IRS has continued to roam without accountability, and the EPA is devising new ways to crush American business and jobs. That patent “reform” is anywhere near a list of priorities for the new Republican majority is mind-boggling.
The push for patent reform has been loudest from a few powerful companies – like Google – who would benefit from a weakening of our patent system. If you haven’t been paying attention, Google has probably been President Obama’s staunchest ally in corporate America and there has essentially been a revolving door in this administration of Google executives taking high profile tech positions. Patent reform is another example of crony capitalism.