Obama Slams Patent Trolls; Calls for More High-Tech Curriculum in Schools

Submitted by patentadmin on Thu, 02/14/2013 - 21:02

February 14, 2013 - In a Google+ Hangout session, President Obama acknowledged that recent patent reform legislation - while sweeping - didn't go far enough to stop "patent trolls" and in fact "only went about halfway to where we need to go."

"[Patent trolls] are a classic example. They don't actually produce anything themselves," Obama said. "They're just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else's idea and see if they can extort some money out of them."

(Actually, patent trolls aren't trying to "hijack somebody else's idea" but rather to enforce their own intellectual property. And whether they invented the patented technology themselves or purchased the patent from the inventor, they retain the right to enforce that patent.)

In response to a participant's question, Obama also said that "it makes sense" to have a computer programming requirement in American high schools similar to the foreign language requirement.