Over at the Innovators Network—ACT’s project that focuses on intellectual property and entrepreneurs—our pal Andre Carter has a post about that Carnegie Institute conference this week. (Morgan wrote about aspects of it here.) I think that Andre’s piece is particularly important because it drives home the points that we’re always trying to make: a) that policy is important, and 2) if you don’t pay attention, people who know little about the real world implications of their decisions end up having a disproportionate amount of say in the matter.
Andre points out that at a conference focusing on intellectual property rights (IPR), the panelists at this particular panel agreed that IPR are a problem for small business. According to them, because there have been a couple of outrageously bad patents issued over time, all patents should be invalidated.
There were just a few voices at the panel arguing that IPR are important to small business, and that a standards process that neglects IP is a standards process that neglects small business. And that’s why, as Andre points out, it’s important for people to be involved, either directly or through participation in trade groups.
P.S. This is unrelated and probably doesn’t garner its own post, but seriously… Is this not the most important news in technology these days? Perhaps the only thing more exciting and useful, IMHO, would be a spelling- and grammar-check feature for Twitter and Facebook status updates.