America Invents IP Blog

Apparently the US is slipping dramatically. See this article from TechDirt

And how far have we slipped, to 23rd it appears says an article that states that in New Zealand, there are 9 times as many startups per unit population (27 vs. 3 per thousand people) attributes the decline to lack of a safety net for startup failures.

Add to that the huge increase in cost slapped on startups by the new, misnamed, America Invents Act (HR 1249) or “AIA” for short, which distorted the US Patent system heavily in favor of big business and decreased the safety net for startups and increased the risk of failure and the investment needed. The AIA could more properly be labeled the Anti-Inventor Act of 2011, because it hurts small business as the National Small Business Association has clearly said.

We have been blogging against this legislation for years, but when it comes to legislation, every American knows we have the worst Congress money can buy where Congressmen spend most of their time fundraising by promising special favors to special interest fat cats in return for campaign “donations” that are not really donations but purchases of special favors and special consideration in special interest legislation.

I am pleased to see the new multi-strike service shut-off anti-p2p strategy being adopted (see http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/major-isps-agree-to-six-strikes-copyright-enforcement-plan.ars) , which is much less draconian than the prior technique of letting outfits like US Copyright Group and other less well known contingent fee copyright enforcement lawyers to send out mass extortion letter (see the responsive blog http://uscopyrightgroupdefense.com/?gclid=CPWDhZ3qw60CFVCR7Qod4HnRBQ) as method of some copyright owners such as producer of Hurt Locker and as Cinetel Films, Inc. on “I Spit On Your Grave”.

In this recent program, a graduated series of notices come from an offender’s ISP until, after 5-6 such notices, services are either shut-off or throttled down and then, if illegal downloading continues, shut down totally.

Copyright owners are not all pleased with this, as there is no monetary recovery against the offenders. However, most copyright owners realize there is never going to be much money recovered from 6th graders or financially strapped college students, so shutting off service is more immediate and effective as it disrupts the offender and forces the offender to switch to another ISP or stop and still leaves open the option of an extortion letter play if some contingent fee firm wants to take that on..