Blog: Patents

Earlier this month, Barack Obama released his plan for technology policy at a speech at Google. Larry Lessig immediately endorsed it, and Public Knowledge had lots of praise. Lessig, PK founder Gigi Sohn, and many Silicon Valley executives have been advising Obama, and their positive influence is clear on the plan.

Obama begins by emphasizing the importance of network neutrality—"prevent[ing] network providers from discriminating in ways that limit the freedom of expression on the Internet." Obama not only gives lip service to net neutrality (as Senator Hillary Clinton does), but he understands it. When asked about net neutrality at an MTV event, Obama not only unequivocally endorsed it but explained it to the audience. (This being a complicated issue, his explanation was correct in spirit if not absolutely precise in all its specifics.)

The plan also hits many of the high notes sought by open access advocates, like limiting media consolidation and maintaining citizens' privacy online. He suggests creating a position of a national CTO, who will ensure that government agencies make information available. He will fix the broken definition of "broadband" that makes it seem like more Americans have decently fast Internet than they really do.

Obama promises to "confront the entrenched Washington interests that have kept our public airwaves from being maximized for the public's interest" by reviewing and improving the allocation of spectrum. This section echoes the language of the innovators over the rhetoric of the telcos, though it also avoids touching directly on details such as the way auctions are run to benefit incumbent phone companies. In contrast, John Edwards jumped more directly into that issue with a great letter to the FCC this summer.

On a few points, Obama's plan charts a middle course. On immigration, he promotes the important principle of enabling "immigrants who earn their degrees in the U.S. to stay, work, and become Americans over time," but also criticizes the technology industry's reliance on H-1B visas. He makes good statements about patent reform, supporting peer review and inexpensive PTO re-reviews of patents, though again with few specific details. And on copyright, he simply says, "Barack Obama believes we need to update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated."

Kudos to Barack Obama for a well thought-out plan, and one clearly superior to Hillary Clinton's (my comments here). While I feel all of the Democratic candidates would make good presidents, I would be much more confident in the direction of our nation's technology and telecommunications with Obama or Edwards in the White House over Senator Clinton.