Former Google exec Lee confirmed to lead U.S. patent office | Hacker News Reader

Former Google exec Lee confirmed to lead U.S. patent office

reuters.com

163 pointscleverjake34 comments

...which still requires you to mail floppy disks or CD-ROMs containing one Excel spreadsheet file in order to update your customer number. See http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewIC?ref_nbr=201209-06....

...and has no static URLs for patent applications.

...and just gave a contract for $800K to a company with no experience, that lied about its incorporation date (it was in business for eight days), and that has produced no product for the USPTO thus far after months, causing at least two other bidders (myself included) to protest formally. See http://www.gao.gov/products/B-410658.

The USPTO does a lot of things, and some of them well, but IT is not one of them.

Interesting.. so what's the backstory behind the company that got the contract?

It may just be the PIs have a good track record..

Let's hope she all but kills the "business method" patents (for which Microsoft killed the reform in Congress [1], but of which Google owns a lot, too [2]), if not most software patents, as well as any other patents that are related to the patents in the Alice ruling [3].

I'm also sure that's an endeavor the "new" Microsoft will support, too (unless the "new" Microsoft is actually the old Microsoft with a fresh coat of PR paint all over it, in which case it probably won't).

[1] - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/20...

[2] - http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2015/01/21/software-and-business-m...

[3] - http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/business_method_a...

Seems like many of the comments here are/will be railing on patent trolls and disgusting corporate enterprises making money off of ideas they claim to have come up with. I actually don't know or really care too much about those issues, but as a student working with patent data in a research lab, I hope to goodness they address their bureaucracy. The patent data they put out is way behind the technology we have today and it's really hampering research in that area, and consolidating it is something we're still dealing with that doesn't even touch on the disambiguation problem yet!

I certain hope she helps to "blunt the patent troll problem" as suggested in the article. The patent system seems desperately sick right now.

Without more staff and without more clear laws and court decisions this isn't going to change.

This seems like a conflict of interest for some reason... I wonder if she'll ever go back to Google in a few years?

Where would we get experts from? Please don't say academics.

And where does MPAA get experts from if not from ex-congressmen responsible for IP reforms?

It seems to me like the same thing, just a more reputable company.

Why not say academics?

No leadership experience.

Professors have tons of leadership experience. They direct their own labs (attracting + allocating resources), train future leaders (graduate students + postdocs), collaborate with other labs, communicate their work to a general audience.... and so on. A tenured professor is also unbiased, in principle.

The academic world doesn't get the credit it deserves.

I would say it's just a little different to direct students, who are more or less completely powerless and captive, compared to industry leadership.

In principle, I agree with everything you said.

In practice? No so much. One could write volumes about how the wheels quickly come off the wagon in each area you listed, since they all happen inside of very specific, narrow, and rigid constructs, ones that seldom translate well.

The analogy that comes to mind would be claiming that having experience leading a team of first-year resident physicians prepares one to be good at motivating people from a broad variety of backgrounds to work hard and long hours.

Which isn't to say that all academics can't excel outside that environment, of course. Talented, gifted academics who would excel at almost anything in which they're engaged will also succeed outside of academia.

Isn't this more like "professors _can have_ tons of leadership experience"? Just because someone is "managing" or a "manager" doesn't mean they do a good job at it or know what they're doing.

All my personal experience with academia says the opposite. The only thing they do is chase grants, but they are awful at collaboration and people management. The whole thing only works because they get nearly free labor from grad students and post docs.

Unbiased? No more or less than anyone who quits their job to take a government job. People try to claim there is a conflict of interest in this case because Lee used to work in industry. Well, colleges are a huge user of the USPTO. In fact many schools patent troll nowadays.

I don't know if academics would be interested. All the good ones are looking to publish. Running the USPTO would hurt their careers.

Complete and utter lack of real-world industry experience?

That is the tropiest trope that ever troped.

I'm not sure you know what that word means.

You might be surprised to find that your assertion, reduced to a stereotype, then used in a metaphor about familiar situations meets the connotation if not also the definition of a trope for my earlier upvoters.

An anti-intellectual stance you have espoused could use some backing. What exactly is wrong with people who study complex things for a living?

Sounds like good news. It's past due for that office to actually do something to prevent patent abuse and low quality patents.

Of course. No revolving-door politician has ever lied, and all patents will be fine and dandy now.

Yes, when I was younger I too would have thought, "Thank goodness someone will run the patent office that understands software."

Now I think, "As a Google shareholder, she is too invested in the status quo."

If patents are really hindering innovation in software, then maybe it will be more beneficial to Google and to her personally to disrupt the status quo.

This sick status quo needs serious disruption. Google aren't new to doing it, for example with video codecs.

Hurray I guess, but would we be saying the same thing if Jamie Dimon or one of his deputies were put in charge of the SEC? Damned if you do, damned if you don't, hoping for the best.

She's been acting head for years. No big deal.

How is the government certain that there is no conflict of interest here? She definitely holds google stock as an employee. Who is to say that doesn't bias her decision making?

I'm sure it does. Google culture is pretty heavily ingrained among employees. And Google seems to have taken a strong interest in acquiring influence in the US government. They also have a former employee holding the Chief Internet Officer role at the White House, and Google has heavily supported over a dozen Congressional campaigns, which has actually come to fruition in the form of those Congresspeople sending blatant "please don't rule against Google" letters to the EU Parliament.

google = gov

if microsoft did this back in the day everything would be different...

Tell me about how Microsoft didn't play politics back in the day, and how everything was so much better when they had fewer serious competitors.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com