Friday, Feb. 25, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
In March the U.S. Senate is expected to begin debate on Senate Bill 23, the Patent Reform Act of 2011. This bill, which was recently approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 15-0 vote, represents a bipartisan effort over several years to balance the interests of all stakeholders, large and small, in an effort to reform and modernize the U.S. patent system.
Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign must now attempt to balance the interests of Nevada’s independent inventors, university system, and high-tech companies of all sizes.
In that effort, I sincerely hope that in attempting to balance those interests they do not lose sight of the overall need to foster innovation as a means of creating jobs while protecting our intellectual property and meeting the challenges facing today’s innovators, investors and manufacturers.
The quality and timeliness of patent review must be improved for the benefit of inventors for us to compete on a global scale in the 21st century. To lose this opportunity for meaningful patent reform will only serve to set us back even further in the global economic race.
To grow locally we need to think globally.
The writer is International Game Technology’s chief legal officer.
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy