The Hill News

In his State of the Union address, President Obama went into innovation overdrive, touting research and development as a key to speeding America’s recovery from recession, strengthening its manufacturing base, and “winning the future” for the U.S. economy.
 
His administration has further emphasized that these goals require improving the nation’s intellectual property protection system not only at home, but abroad â€" hence the White House’s focus on securing new "promises" from China at the recent Washington summit to crack down on its systemic infringements.
 
Yet the President’s new innovation-centered plans will flop, and the economy will weaken further, if he supports an ill-advised patent reform bill about to be marked up Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee. This legislation, the Patent Reform Act of 2011, will actually undermine the nation’s technological progress and growth by promoting intellectual property theft, not p! rotection.

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