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USPTO Sued Over "Unqualified Appointment"
Techdirt is reporting that a small group of patent lawyers and investors are suing the US Secretary of Commerce in order to prevent the appointment of Margaret Peterlin to Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the US Patent and Trademark Office. "According to the suit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Congress amended the Patent Act in 1999 to require that the Director and Deputy Director of the USPTO each have "professional experience and background in patent or trademark law." Peterlin's appointment, announced May 8, violates the statute because she "lacks the requisite professional experience and background," the suit said. [...] They are asking the court to order Gutierrez to dismiss Peterlin immediately and establish rules to assess what qualifies as a professional background and experience in patent or trademark law. They also want the court to order Gutierrez to appoint a replacement for Peterlin who fulfills those requirements."
If this ploy works, I suggest bringing a class action suit against the Presidency on the same grounds.
She's a member of the Federalist Society, isn't that enough? http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/id.54/author.a sp
What more could you want?
WTF? Someone, who is otherwise unqualified, is getting a political appointment? What's going on here?
This is outrageous - does President Bush know about this? Probably not. I'm sure if he did he'd do something about it - that's his no-nonsense way.
I followed you up to that "simple" part. The rest of the sentence, however, is giving me problems.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If you believe shit pollutes the water, you should stop shitting immediately, because every time you shit you are polluting the water. If people had believed that the Clean Water Act could have extended to shit, it never would have passed.