Last chance to keep a strong patent system in place A weaker patent system is one more step closer to reality with the House passage of a new patent bill. the IEEE-USA has taken a position that, while harmonization is acceptable, weakening the strong protection we have here in the USA is bad for Innovation and Innovators.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., who said (quoted in the WSJ) that the bill would "dramatically weaken the patent rights of ordinary Americans and make us even more vulnerable to the outright theft of American-created technology and innovation."

If you are an IEEE member, you can use the Legislative Action Center at the IEEEUSA public policy page to connect to your elected officials and let you know how YOU feel about this..

While you might express your displeasure with your Congressman, your time might be better focused on your senator.

The LAC provides a canned letter for you to send.. with an option to edit it first. Russ Harrison will be here in Silicon Valley as ONE of the speakers for our Oct 19th event to tell us more about the best ways to communicate with your representatives. One point of his message (I've already seen it once) is that if you rewrite the message, it becomes a non-canned message, and most elected officials pay more attention to these. If you can afford a few minutes to rewrite the message, it will increase the impact.

See you soon  ¶ Permanent Link to This Post 5:06 PM