Posted by
Takeadair on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 9:35:11 PM
A mischievous congressional "reform" in 1999 authorized the U.S. Patent Office to shift to the Japanese and European practice of publishing patent applications 18 months after filing whether or not a decision is yet made on granting a patent. Congress allowed a patent application, under certain conditions, to be exempt from the publication requirement, but the default procedure is to publish.
The 2007 Patent bill would delete this exemption and require publication of all patent applications 18 months after filing regardless of whether a decision has been made on granting a patent.
By 2006, the U.S. Patent Office had placed 1,271,000 patent applications on the Internet, giving access to anyone anywhere in the world. This foolish practice created a gold mine for China to steal U.S. innovations and get to market quickly.
Chinese pirates don't roam the high seas looking for booty but sit at their computers, roam the Internet, and steal the details of U.S. inventions that the U.S. Patent Office loads online. This practice became China's research and development program, and it is even more efficient than China's network of industrial and military spies.