"The patent system was designed for individual inventors. Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers-these were lone entrepreneurs securing temporary monopoly rights in exchange for disclosing their inventions to the public. But sometime after World War II, corporations and universities completed a quiet takeover of the patent office. Today's patent landscape is dominated by patent oligarchs: systematic corporate R&D programs filing thousands of applications annually, not individuals pursuing personal innovation."
"This architectural mismatch-19th century governance applied to 21st century corporate patent strategies-creates three simultaneous crises that converge at the worst possible moment for American competitiveness. What Commerce Secretary Lutnick recognized, and what his critics miss, is that this is not a new excise tax."
Patent protections are dominated by corporations and universities rather than individual inventors, shifting the system's scale and purpose. The USPTO still applies processes designed for solitary inventors—individual examination, fees, maintenance, and enforcement—while corporate actors file at massive scale. That architectural mismatch creates multiple crises that threaten American competitiveness. Requiring corporations to fund patent protections in line with the commercial materiality those protections enable would provide appropriate cost recovery for corporate infrastructure. Reform could position patent policy as an economic driver by treating intellectual property as investible assets that circulate jobs, businesses, and competitive advantages.
Read at IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Intellectual Property Law
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