FOX News Opinion: Super Soaker Inventor: Keep toys and millions of other products in the pipeline — protect the patent system
As an inventor holding over 100 U.S. patents – including the Super Soaker water gun, Nerf dart guns, clean energy technologies and many more – I know firsthand the vital role that patents play in incentivizing and protecting innovation.
Patents, copyrights and trademarks all protect intellectual property – an invention, idea or process that derives from a person’s creative thoughts. The U.S. House Small Business Committee is holding a hearing on the topic Wednesday.
Patents are vital to encourage the creation of inventions and other intellectual property.
But the strong patent system that helped me succeed in the 1980s and 1990s is now weaker due to court decisions and other changes in the law. And the United States has fallen in global patent rankings from the No.1 spot in the world down to No.12 this year.
I am worried that the patent system that helped me succeed will not be there for future generations of inventors. Fortunately, there is bipartisan legislation in Congress to fix this problem. The aptly-named “STRONGER Patents Act” will ensure that future generations have the same protections and incentives that I did.