Inventors Digest: A Patent Owner Defending Property Rights is not a Bully, by Gene Quinn
This post originally appeared in Inventors Digest on February 22, 2016.
Colleen Chien, a law professor at Santa Clara University and a former senior advisor to President Obama on intellectual property and innovation, recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal that small businesses may want to simply ignore letters they receive from patent owners alleging infringement of a patent.
This is rather astonishing for several reasons. First, a patent is a right granted by the federal government that is presumed to be legally valid. A recent senior advisor to the president that is advising potential infringers they should ignore notices telling them they are infringing speaks volumes about how the executive branch views patents and patent owners. Once upon a time, patents and inventors were highly regarded in our society; today they are seen as nuisances that can and probably should be ignored, even by the White House.