Slashdot Mirror
White House May Name Patent Reform Opponent As New Head of Patent Office
An anonymous reader writes The Obama Administration is set to appoint Phil Johnson, a pharmaceutical industry executive, as the next Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, according to sources. The move is likely to anger patent reform advocates given Johnson's past efforts to block legislation aimed at reining in patent trolls, and in light of his positions that appear to contradict the White House's professed goal of fixing the patent system. The top job at the Patent Office has been vacant for around 18-months since the departure of previous director David Kappos in early 2013. Currently, the office is being managed by former Googler Michelle Lee, who was appointed deputy director in December. Earlier this month, Republican Senators led by Orrin Hatch (R-UT) sent a letter to President Obama that praised Lee but that also described the current USPTO management structure as "unfair, untenable and unacceptable for our country's intellectual property agency."
Is anybody surprised? Claim to support Net Neutrality and give the power to the Cable lobby. He's done this before and he'll do it again. Hypocrite-in-chief.
At first I was fooled. Copyrights. Patents. Guantanamo Bay. What is it with this guy.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It seems like no matter what Obama says, he continues to appoint lobbyists with clear conflicts of interest to important positions rather than actually think about his choices. First it was Tom Wheeler at the FCC, and now a lobbyist and executive for Big Pharma in charge of patents. What causes him to keep doing this?
Obama seems to be the first mainstream US presidential candidate in a long time to "talk the talk" to the kind of people who read Slashdot. The others have been spouting ignorant crap or simply ignoring the topics that most Slashdotters care about. Therefore Obama is the first president that we can be disappointed in -- the others were known bad before they became presidents.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Obama seems to be the first mainstream US presidential candidate in a long time to "talk the talk" to the kind of people who read Slashdot. The others have been spouting ignorant crap or simply ignoring the topics that most Slashdotters care about. Therefore Obama is the first president that we can be disappointed in -- the others were known bad before they became presidents.
Um, maybe to you. I saw Obama coming a mile away, he's admittedly even more of a let down than I or anyone else could imagine but I knew the vapid talk was just that. I'm glad you admit that he fooled you, most on your side keep claiming that he's actually not an embarrassing failure and that things are way better than when Bush was in office.
Do you have ESP?
"The guy we elected was smart, charismatic, capable, articulate; he ran a brilliant campaign that took out the heavily favored Hilary Clinton. He came across as a man with the intelligence, principles, and pragmatism to fix the nations problems"
I'm going to type something that will seem a slam against Obama, but that's really not my point (I'm not a fan of most politicians), read the whole post:
Where was the evidence for ANY of that? You were propagandized. All the democrat-run news networks told you he was "brilliant" and you bought it even though he sealed all his academic records (unlike all previous candidates) and you've still never seen them. The same people told you he was "capable" even though he'd never run ANYTHING, never been responsible for ANYTHING, never held a job that required ANY productivity or creativity. Now when he is unable to get things done, he blames the Republicans and those same news outlets help him (even though MOST presidents have had to deal with opponents in congress) Articulate? Have you ever seen him without a teleprompter? Sure all those same biased sources gushed about how "articulate" he was... but what was the true evidence? He stumbles and stutters like crazy without a teleprompter and even uses them to address elementary school kids (liberal Democrats ridiculed VICE Presidential candidate Palin for scribblying several words on her hand before giving a half-hour long speech without teleprompters). Was his campaign over Hillary TRULY "brilliant" or did she run a poor campaign (as she appears to be doing again) and was she jettisoned by a Democrat-leaning press that found a candidate it preferred to support? (Reminders: Hillary claimed the fairest coverage she got in 2008 was on Fox, and Bill is still bitter and said Obama "played the race card" against him and Hillary). As for "good intentions"... as the old saying goes: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". George Bush and his supporters would say HE had "good intentions"...
My point is that people are easily manipulated, and the techniques politicians and their armies of advisors and campaign staff use are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Obama's own team brags about their "mirco-targetting" and other campaign breakthroughs (which, if you THINK about it are all just ways of manipulating people). The problem is made worse when 9 out of 10 journalists in the US have repeatedly admitted to being aligned with the Democrats. When that combined propaganda machine "kicks-in" and works on behalf of one person (no matter the skin color, gender, etc) the population is sadly ill-equipped to see through the marketing smoke screen and ask questions about actual abilities, actual qualifications, etc. Obama had NO applicable resume for the Presidency (and Hillary's was just as thin (former First Lady, and recipient of a donated Senate seat). Those two 2008 candidates did NOT have the qualifications of an FDR, a JFK, a Reagan, and LBJ, etc. and no amount of PR and friendly news coverage could cure it.