Obama’s Preparation for the World Patent Wars

This June, American President Barack Obama nominated David Kappos, IBM’s vice president and assistant general counsel for intellectual property law, to the directorship of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)—the commander-in-chief of the patent wars. Upon hearing of the Kappos nomination, intellectual property organizations voiced public support. Why did Obama nominate Kappos, a man of the corporate world, to the USPTO directorship?

If the industry policy of the Bush administration was in favor of large corporations, the current Democratic administration’s policy favors creating a knowledge industry focused on medium and small corporations as well as venture companies. Additionally, Obama has placed fostering the knowledge industry on the national agenda in order to make the United States into the global frontrunner. Therefore, the nomination of the vice president of intellectual property rights of IBM, a global leader in the knowledge industry, as the commander of America Incorporated is not a surprise but rather a good fit for fostering the knowledge industry.

In his early days in office, Obama emphasized that science and technology were the key to national prosperity and the survival of mankind. He formed an impressive “National Science Dream Team” and nominated America’s best scientists to top posts in key departments. Moreover, by expanding funding for stem cell research that had been banned during the Bush Administration, Obama hopes that additional research and patents will enlarge the frontiers of this field. And by bringing a vice president of a leading company in intellectual property reform into the administration, he is planning a systemic reform to prepare for the world patent wars.

IBM, one of the three top American corporations, was once synonymous with the PC. In the 2000s, however, it sold its PC branch—the core of the old company—to China, and emerged as a global company focusing on intellectual property services. At the center of these reforms was Kappos. While Kappos was in charge over intellectual property rights, he emphasized that patents serve a crucial role in raising the value of corporations, and was critical to IBM maintaining its status of having the most patents registered in the United States for thirteen years. Moreover, he seized a commanding position in the world patent wars through patent commercialization. Therefore, the selection of Kappos as the director of the USPTO is not only a important piece of Obama’s plan to foster the knowledge industry, but also kills two birds with one stone by encouraging intellectual property production domestically and further expanding the realm of intellectual property rights internationally.

On the other hand, Japan, America’s rival in the patent wars, has formed the “Joint Science and Technology Conference” with the prime minister at its head in order to rival the American Science Dream Team. The body will oversee national science and technology policy and patent strategy. Further, by setting becoming an “Intellectual Property Leading Country” as an item on the national agenda, Japan is refitting the entire nation’s economy into the framework of the knowledge industry. The two countries share in common not only the fact that the executive branch has initiated reform, but also that the judiciary branch has set up a specialized combat system of litigation and representation in order to win the world patent wars.

Now is the time for us to change. Although we have started later than the U.S. or Japan, we can always win the war if only a national patent wars system is prepared—for we are a people who, despite being unable to compete in tests of physical strength, can achieve victory in mental fights such as archery or baseball. If territorial wars are fought by the “physical army,” the patent wars are fought by an invisible intellectual army.

Patent development requires the encouragement of research and development in order to raise an intellectual army, providing funding for overseas patent litigation for patent “combat support,” setting up a patent rights insurance system for “injured veterans” of the patent wars, drawing high-quality young military personnel into the intellectual defense force through the implementation of an electronic military service system and finishing national patent wartime preparations through administrative and judicial reforms with the enactment of an intellectual property basic law!

Such reforms are the minimal change required to survive in today’s patent wars, as well as an urgent choice for our country’s future. Even today, if the political establishment were to overcome partisanship and unite to spend effort on these sorts of reforms, then we can easily weather today’s economic crisis.

Recently it was said that the Blue House and our administration are earnestly investigating an intellectual property basic law. With these efforts, I hope that our country will lay down a broad a foundation for becoming a major power in intellectual property.