Financial Times: A better US patent system will spur innovation, by Rana Foroohar
This post originally appeared in Financial Times on September 3, 2017.
Imagine that you are the founder of a small biotech company. You have spent millions of dollars and years of time developing a new diagnostic test for a blood disease. You are about to revolutionise your field.
But if you are a researcher in the US, you may very well not get a patent for your game changing discovery, because recent shifts in the system mean that your invention is no longer protected. Or you may get a patent, but it could be challenged in a non-court adjudication system, allowing other firms to quickly invalidate your intellectual property.