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January 1, 2012
Hostage
The Wall
Street Journal reports that mobile phone patent cases before
the ITC "hold the economy hostage," because the ITC's sole power is "to
ban imports of foreign products that infringe on U.S. patents." The ITC
was granted this power in the notorious (for its economical
insensibility) 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the passage of which
rightly sent the stock market into a nose dive. More generally, in this
age of rapid technological advancement, patents, regardless of
technology, impose an unjustified tax on consumers and smaller
companies, demolishing competition and snuffing start-up prospects. The
ITC has a built-in bias against foreign-based corporations. The corrupt
courts, including (especially) the CAFC & Supreme Court, find
ways to let the largest corporations prevail (in all cases except where
the corruption would be most egregiously apparent, in which case the
toll to the infringing corporation is lowered). This costly crooked
game needs to be abolished.
Small minds so easily rationalize their boundless greed. Apple's Steve Jobs wanted to "destroy Android, because it's a stolen product." Jobs got his start stealing technology from Xerox.
Posted by Patent Hawk at January 1, 2012 5:19 PM | Patents In Business