i3 - July/August 2016 - 38

Policy

By Vikrum Aiyer, chief of staff of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

G U E ST B LO G

T

oday, the business of innovation moves at lightning
speed, is not constrained by international boundaries,
and is limited only by the extent of one's imagination.
Whether it's smart fabrics, driverless cars or drones,
each new breakthrough redefines what it means to be on the
cutting edge of innovation.
As America's Innovation Agency, it's
incumbent upon us at USPTO (U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office) to keep
up with the pace of business by adapting
quickly to the needs of the innovation
community. To accomplish this, we are
working diligently with stakeholders,
including small businesses and startups,
and collaboratively across government
agencies to help ensure a thriving innovation ecosystem.
The basic compact of the patent system
is that new information begets new innovation-allowing each inventive step to stand
on the shoulders of prior discovery. In
April, the USPTO made a great leap into
exposing the world to one of the largest
repositories of data on the development
of technology trends by launching the
USPTO's new Developer Hub. The uses
and applications for this data are limitless.
You need look no further than the vice
president's Cancer Moonshot initiative
to see how impactful this data can be.
Through this big data approach, government and research entities will soon be
able to pour through and assess which
areas are showing the most promise, pinpoint what tech is most germane to cancer
treatments, and fast track those treatments through the process. This could
spur R&D activity, help surgically direct
funding of U.S. government investments,
and possibly patients with better tools to
fight the pervasive disease, all rooted in
the power of intellectual property (IP).
With data now in easily reviewable formats, the sky is the limit for innovators.
Another important part of ensuring
a thriving innovation ecosystem means
providing IP owners with appropriate
safeguards including legal remedies when
38

JULY/AUGUST 2016

With data now in
easily reviewable
formats, the sky is the
limit for innovators.
one's IP has been illegally appropriated.
This May, after strong leadership from
the Administration (including the teams
at both USPTO and the Department
of Commerce), we saw the passage and
signing of the Defend Trade Secrets Act
(DTSA). An important piece of legislation,
the DTSA helps protect American companies against the theft of trade secrets
by creating a federal civil cause of action.
With an estimated annual loss of $300
billion attributed to trade secret theft, this
new cause of action provides yet another
arrow in the quiver of IP protections by
empowering companies to develop their

trade secret protection strategies with
increased confidence that they have correctly predicted needs and outcomes as
a result of the uniformity of protection
across state lines.
Another area of safeguards for IP is
ensuring the right policy and process surrounding each registration, application,
and use around copyrights, trademarks
and patents. On the copyright policy, the
USPTO is taking a leading role to ensure
balance in our copyright system. This
spring marked the release of the USPTO
co-authored "White Paper on Remixes,
First Sale Doctrine, and Statutory
Damages", which, for the first time since
the 1990s, provided valuable observations
and legislative recommendations on a
host of copyright issues. On the trademark
front, we continue to take a leading role in
the global discussion on trademark policy
through our participation in international
gatherings like TM5 and ID5 (forums
of the five largest trademark offices in the
world that promote cooperation and
collaboration between members).
Finally, USPTO's Enhanced Patent
Quality Initiative continues to improve
our strong patenting process. Marking
one year since an array of initiatives were
announced, USPTO hosted a Patent
Quality Community Symposium to
update the public on the programs, introduce developing programs, and collect
feedback from stakeholders. By making
such improvements, we are increasing the
certainty of the patents issued and decreasing the likelihood that these patents will be
litigation in coming years. These initiatives will undoubtedly help cement our IP
system as the gold standard.
These steps strengthen the fabric of
IP protections, which have been the cornerstone of American ingenuity, allowing
CTA members to continue building and
reimagining the way we interact with
the world. We can accomplish this by
working in concert with our stakeholders
and we look forward to this important
collaboration.
n
I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

Jay Prem ack/USPTO

The Pace of Innovation


https://developer.uspto.gov/

i3 - July/August 2016

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