Half of US Patents Issued Out of US For Second Year 90
netbuzz writes "According to a new report from IFI Patent Intelligence, 51% of patents issued by the United States in 2009 went to companies located overseas. While this marks the second consecutive year that a majority of US patents have landed abroad, an author of the report says: 'It's foolhardy to use this statistic to infer that American firms are losing ground to foreign competitors because with patents, it's important to consider quality, as well as quantity.' IBM was once again granted the most patents of any company, 4,914, followed by Samsung and Microsoft."
Imaginary Property (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of goes along with the huge valuation given to IP assets for US companies compared to their real assets.
Re:Stick a fork in it, the US is done (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a zero sum game. The more produced, the wealthier the world becomes as a whole. Of course this only goes to an extent due to limited natural resources.
In fact this is a good thing, I mean honestly do you expect 6% of the population to produce 50+% of the worlds intellectual property?
US != 50% of world (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't there more overseas companies than US companies? And if so, why should this be surprising in the slightest?
Surprise? (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA:
It's foolhardy to use this statistic to infer that American firms are losing ground to foreign competitors because with patents, it’s important to consider quality, as well as quantity
Ah, except the patent office isn't exactly concerned with quality. A patent is a patent, regardless of quality, and granting more of them is in the interest of anyone in the system (as the actual cost of the economic burden it imposes isn't accounted for by the granters, legislators or recipients).
While American companies continue to add patents, IFI Patent Intelligence says foreign firms are also working to win patents at a "frenetic pace," which could be considered a good thing for the U.S. economy overall.
Right. As IPR is macro-economically equivalent to taxation, that's the same thing as saying 'more taxes are a good thing for the economy overall'. As a general rule, I don't actually think that's an accepted theory within any economic branch; even the most tax friendly theories usually prefer a somewhat efficient use of the taxation burden.
"The silver lining may be that the high priority foreign firms place on U.S. patents is a confirmation of the value and importance that the U.S. market represents."
The question is why wouldn't a foreign company be interested in obtaining taxation rights to the US economy? There's nothing as lucrative as having government enforced rights to take money without doing anything.
Of course it utterly screws those paying for the system, but it certainly is nice for those who can skim the pot. Eventually it falls apart of course, as the burdens on industry and workers mean they simply cannot compete and when the ability to borrow to keep going is lost one ends up without industrial base, in deep debt and with significant legal risks to any industry trying to operate within the economy.
Judge rules in quantity vs. quality case (Score:4, Insightful)
...it's [slashdot.org] important [slashdot.org] to [slashdot.org] consider [slashdot.org] quality [slashdot.org], as [slashdot.org] well [slashdot.org] as [slashdot.org] quantity [slashdot.org].
To name a few.
Re:What's funny is... (Score:3, Insightful)
They're probably US companies with offshore interests. You know, the kind of interest that substantially reduces a company's US tax burden.
Re:Coincidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think patents from other companies aren't as trivial as those, you haven't looked hard enough. Or read Slashdot for long.
quality doesn't matter (Score:1, Insightful)
Quality doesn't really matter.
When you have enough patents you can always find one that suits your needs.
The U.S. has foolishly decided that it could give up producing any tangible goods and live by simply creating "Intellectual Property". ...)
Well you know what? Other countries can and have always been creating as much "Intellectual Property" as the U.S. all along, but they haven't given up the other productions (Germany, China, India,
Given recent restriction on brain importations imposed by a recent genial govt. the U.S. has also put a brake to its creation of I.P.
Those brains are not going to sit idle, they are going to produce I.P. elsewhere, where they are accepted and treated fairly.
Either in their home countries, or in others like Singapore, Europe, etc...
Once the U.S. will loose their lead in I.P. creation there will be nothing left except a huge debt with China.
I believe the U.S. have just one ace left; their legendary ability to reinvent themselves.
But that was easier when the country was younger and politicians were not just puppets of a few greedy myopic corporations that can't see beyond a few quarters time frame.
But there is always hope ... and change ... ... ... oh wait!
Re:Incase we needed *yet another* wakeup call (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason is simple: We need to stop letting the government make life difficult for American buisiness. The government already destroyed the credit market by subsidizing high risk loans and now we're facing a huge debt problem, not personal debt but government debt. Regulations have become crippling. It's choking American enterprise.
The large percentage of the sub prime loans weren't subsidized. Simple regulations/requirements on loan prudence, capital reserves and transparency for financial instruments like the infamous CDS would've saved the economy far more than changing subsidies. In fact, countries with more tightly regulated financial systems (such as Australia) did much better in the recent crisis than those that didn't.
Sure, the government is at fault (as are the businesses themselves for making imprudent investments), but blaming over-regulation and too much government interaction is just an ideological kneejerk. Sometimes regulations are good, sometimes they're bad but the important thing is you get them right instead of focusing on some narrow ideology.
I've personally always wanted to be in buisiness for myself, but recently it's become all but impossible due to the taxes, regulations and so on. You know what it takes to hire a single employee? Payroll tax, record keeping regulations, insurance, OSHA compliance, registration, W-40, workers comp insurance. I can't do it! It's gotten so bad no matter how bad I want to expand, I can't do it. The current administration has made it so much worse.
Half of the things you mentioned are there for your benefit, in particular when you get sued (just see what happens if you don't have insurance and you haven't kept proper records) or need to take a trip to the accountant. The other half are for the employee's benefit, in that they should be able to work for you without risking serious injury or at least being fairly compensated if they do. Really, it sounds awfully like you want a free ride here; employees are an investment, you have to pay money to make money. They may not be instantly profitable, but if you can't afford to pay for them, it's your business model that's wrong, not the government. As a business owner myself, you have to realize that the benefits of having a business come with a whole bunch of responsibility and risk.