With Steve Jobs’ death the United States has lost one of the most creative, innovative, and influential minds of this century. Apple’s products and Jobs’ ideas are some of the most influential of the last decade and have changed the world’s personal relationship with technology. This past week, his life was celebrated across the world in numerous tweets, Facebook posts and articles, however his death also prompted the following blog: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/10/07/chinas-internet-why-china-has-no-steve-jobs/.
Last Friday, October 7th, the Wall Street Journal featured a blog entitled, “Why There Is No Steve Jobs in China.” The piece highlighted that China has the ability to produce the same market value and business model as Apple within the next decade, but due to the education system’s memorization values and the structure of its authoritarian government it will be difficult to produce such an innovative company. “Wang Wei, chairman of the Chinese Museum of Finance, wrote: ‘In a society with an authoritarian political system, monopolistic business environment, backward-looking culture and prevalent technology theft, talking about a master of innovation? Not a chance! Don’t even think about it.’”
This article assumes that while China may have difficulty producing such great innovation, the United States is still a haven for creativity and development. Like Steve Jobs, there are other youths making discoveries and inventing in their own garages, waiting to change the world. However, the WSJ’s blog reminded me of an NPR radio cast from over the summer which highlighted the difficulty for present day innovation. This is due to “patent trolls,” companies that buy up broad patents and then go out and sue entrepreneurs and start-ups. Companies, including Flickr are then submerged into enormous legal fees essentially stalling and sometimes bankrupting their businesses. In September President Obama signed a patent refurbishment bill, which grants a “first to file” right to inventors but many critics say that this will nothing to help entrepreneurs get to market and avoid the “patent trolls.” According to President Obama, “If we want startups here and if we want established companies, like a DuPont or a Eli Lily to continue to make products here and hire here, then we're going to have to be able to compete with any other country around the world. So this patent bill will encourage that innovation.” Critics are unconvinced that this patent bill overhaul will do anything to discourage patent trolls and boost innovation.
Could Steve Jobs' early Apple survived modern day “patent trolls?” Can the United States maintain its role as a beacon of invention and innovation despite bureaucratic patent processes?
- Claire
From what I can interpret from that NPR article, I don't see how the new act will help innovation. It seems to me like a quicker, "first to file" process will actually harm a lot of people by helping the patent trolls get *their* patents approved more easily.
ReplyDeletePD. "So when they're talking about creating jobs, well, they're hiring some more patent inspectors, so that's some jobs right there."
That part is just laughable.