Innovation is something that keeps me up at night — because of excitement, not stress. I get an idea, and I just can’t sleep. I draw it out, sometimes I code, and when I get really excited I often break out my 3D printer and soldering iron and fully bring the idea into the world. One of the best things about becoming a father has been teaching my daughters that they too can bring their ideas into the world.
In fact, I came home last week to a vending machine that my 7-year-old daughter had constructed out of cardboard, tape, and a water bottle. I was a proud father, and I know that she will turn that creativity and tinkering into a successful future.
On a macroeconomic level, we need public policy that allows late-night mad scientists to turn lab work into jobs by giving late-night mad scientists the incentive to take their innovations out of their garages, kitchens, and craft rooms and actually take them to market. Fortunately, our Founding Fathers knew this and created an inventor-based patent system instead of a crony-based innovation system.
Before our independence and the Constitution, the king awarded patents to their crony friends, but because of the Constitution, Americans were allowed to receive the rights to their own ideas. This gave the farmer the incentive to innovate and commercialize their invention. In fact, awarding a patent to the inventor is one of the few “rights” that is explicitly outlined in the Constitution. This has helped the U.S. economy grow to a Gross Domestic Product of more than $19 trillion, 25 percent of the Gross World Product.
And today, we are seeing a patent system and a leader of the patent office poised to make America’s innovation system great again.
Andrei Iancu, the new director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and a champion of innovation, is a man that is dedicated to talking about innovators as moral, talking about innovators as the backbone of the economy, and, most importantly, taking real actions to ensure that our patent system is set up to help inventors instead of patent infringers. One of his first helpful actions is a new rule proposal that forces an administrative “patent death panel” at the UPSTO to interpret patents in the same way that the federal courts interpret patents: narrowly.
The rule change will mean that the USPTO’s new-ish Administrative Court, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, signed into law in 2011, will restore the certainty that inventors need to invest and commercialize their innovations.
Before the USPTO grants a patent, they use a broad interpretation of the patents claims when searching prior art to make sure that the patent is new and hasn’t previously been invented. That helps ensure that patents are truly novel. And when patents are challenged in district courts, they use a narrow interpretation which helps protect the patent from being struck down – it is good for the inventor and therefore good for the innovation economy.
This change is important because patent litigation is expensive, and, in part because of the difference in the interpretation, almost 87 percent of patents subject to review by the PTAB have also been subject to litigation in the federal courts. The PTAB has created a second bite of the apple for would-be infringers and a second large hurdle for innovators.
As the USPTO awards its 10 millionth patent, it is also important to understand where the U.S. stands in the world in regards to innovation. According to studies conducted by the Chamber of Commerce since the passage of the American Invents Act, the U.S. has fallen from #1 in patent protection to #12.
Awarding patents is great, and we should celebrate every patent. However, we also need to understand that each patent is only as good as the system defending those same patents. Otherwise, a patent is just a pretty piece of paper.
The next generation of inventors are still in their garages waiting to file the next million patents and grow the economy even more. I think of a patent as an opportunity. I teach my kids to look at the world with an innovative eye. It is exciting to see that Iancu feels the same way.
Now, we can celebrate the 10 millionth patent and truly be excited that the pretty piece of paper that will accompany it is worth something – and the next ones will be too.
Charles Sauer (@CharlesSauer) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is president of the Market Institute and previously worked on Capitol Hill, for a governor, and for an academic think tank.
