IP Watchdog: Only Congressional Patent Reform Can Restore Constitutional Rights by Patrick Kilbride
“Expeditious congressional approval and enactment of [PERA and PREVAIL] would be a vital step toward restoring the property rights of inventors.”
Encouraged and abetted by free riders who would benefit unfairly from others’ work, well-intentioned lawmakers and judicial activists have compromised the U.S. patent system, threatening America’s prosperity and national security. But we have the chance to reverse this trend by supporting two bills that will be debated this week in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Recent actions to minimize the rights of inventors to their own work has opened the door for China and others to usurp America’s role as the world’s innovation leader in critical and emerging technologies. The clear intent of America’s Founders to protect the fruits of intellectual labors as private property in the Constitution could not be plainer. In Federalist Paper No. 43, President-to-be James Madison described intellectual property, or IP, as “a right of common law”.