THE POWER OF AN IDEA

I've found patents fascinating. A little over a year working at the Patents & Trademarks Office Carlyle campus in Alexandria, Virginia provided me an opportunity to look at patent work upclose. I admit I knew nothing about patents, but exposure has heightened my appreciation and understanding of its role in America's continuing strength. And hope for mankind.

I see the patents institution as the heart of intellectual property rights. And by extension, a bedrock of private ownership and private enterprise. It celebrates the power of the individual, showcasing the potency of a single, original, viable human thought. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." Any society that is propelled by new ideas, I believe, would find the concept of patents indispensable, perhaps even essential to its survival.

I'm barred from talking about patents applications (believe me, they're enough to fill volumes, from the most absurdly funny to the truly impressively ambitious), but feel compelled to write about something that I've been immersed in since the summer of 2006.

There is a raging debate whether the concept of patents (defined as exclusive rights granted by the state for a fixed period of time in exchange for disclosure of an invention) actually advances or stymies technological advancement. Foremost among the criticism is that it limits access to badly needed products or know-how, especially those that impact the world's poor and marginalized, such as breakthrough medicines that at the onset, will usually carry a prohibitive price. But without it, most pharmaceuticals would hesitate to invest in a new drug if they can not recover the costs. The patents concept is one of the oldest. It has evolved since the Romans and Greeks granted the first patents (e.g., for new food recipes), and this ongoing debate will certainly exert the right pressure for reforms. I have no doubt about that.

After the patent runs out, the technology becomes public property.


And since they are the big-stake players, large multinationals often end up in either end of patents infringement battles. Like the recent $1.5 billion suit filed by Alcatel-Lucent against Microsoft, involving MP3 technology.

Google has an engine that can help surf through seven million patents from the US alone. Beats me, just how many there are in the world since most countries have their own patents system.

By ensuring that invention and innovation remain rewarding, patents provide the impetus for continued development.

Sometimes I wonder how, with the huge volume of issued patents, any new invention can get patented. But they do. Just as human needs change and grow, so too do the tools by which to meet those needs. I'd like to see it as proof-positive of the infinite potential of the human mind.