U.S. Patent History: President Reagan Overcorrected

Nanjing Huaxun analyzed that due to the aversion to capital monopoly, the United States used too much medicine in the process of disinfecting the patent innovation system. After years of extreme suppression, the patent innovation system in the United States was dying in the 1980 s. In order to change the unfavorable situation of innovation competition between the United States and Japan, what President Reagan can do is to overdo it.

1. situation is urgent

After World War II, after more than 20 years of recovery, the economies of Europe and Japan began to regain their vitality, while the United States appeared to be faltering because companies only explored the domestic market and did not update equipment and technological transformation. The international competitiveness of American products is greatly reduced. More importantly, American innovation activity has been at a low ebb. After decades of post-war imprisonment on the patent innovation mechanism, many enterprises in the United States lack the motivation to innovate, and their innovation achievements are limited, which can not support higher profit high-end manufacturing. In the late 1970 s and early 1980 s, under the strong impact of Japan's low-cost imitations, the United States began to run a huge trade deficit. Americans began to worry, doubt, and go crazy. The behavior of beating, smashing, looting and burning Japanese cars and other commodities spread all over the United States.

At the same time, the third technological revolution, that is, the information revolution, is quietly approaching. The United States needs to rely on strengthening the innovation-driven mechanism to gradually establish a global leading position in technology, economy and comprehensive national strength, and the patent system is the key force to promote technological innovation and reform. After years of anti-monopoly strengthening, the intellectual property awareness of American enterprises and citizens has been very weak. Large companies such as General Electric, IBM, and Xerox are all subject to various antitrust rulings, and obtaining patent authorization is problematic, let alone patent exercise.

After the Reagan administration came to power, it conducted a series of surveys and finally found that, in sharp contrast to the overall economic recession, the high-tech industry in the United States showed a good momentum of development. However, the development of high-tech industries is not only not protected and supported by the innovation system, but also suppressed by the strong anti-monopoly views of the entire economic community and the entire American society. In 1985, the U.S. Industrial Competition Commission proposed to Reagan a recommendation entitled "Global Competitiveness-A New Reality". The report pointed out that the economic recession in the United States is a reality that must be faced, but the technological power of the United States is still the highest in the world. Level. This technological advantage is not reflected in trade because the United States does not adequately protect intellectual property such as patents. All the facts since then have proved that this is the highest level of economic research in American history.

In order to save the sluggish state of American industry, the Reagan administration adopted a different attitude towards the patent system than before, weakened the operation of antitrust law, suppressed opposition to patent rights, and achieved the goal of using patents as a wall to protect domestic trade, activate American innovation, and make the United States economically stronger.

In order to encourage innovation, the U.S. government and court system have continuously adjusted the patent exercise mechanism, forming a series of pro-patent patent innovation mechanisms. In 1982, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals was established, which unified the application of the patent law of the U.S. Federal District Court, and at the same time implemented the general strategy of pro-patent, which comprehensively affected the patent exercise system of the United States, and then retrospectively affected the patent examination and authorization system of the United States. The new patent mechanism includes the patentable object, the obvious standard, the calculation method of infringement compensation, and so on.