Obama plans patent shake up

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has unveiled his technology strategy and is calling for an overhaul of the United States patent system and the appointment of a national chief technology officer (CTO).

If elected the policy states that he wants to overhaul the national internet network to next generation broadband and put in laws to encourage open access for all. He has also made clear his commitment to network neutrality, but it is his policies on patents that will raise eyebrows in Silicon Valley.

"By improving predictability and clarity in our patent system, we will help foster an environment that encourages innovation," the document states.

"Giving the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) the resources to improve patent quality and opening up the patent process to citizen review will reduce the uncertainty and wasteful litigation that is currently a significant drag on innovation."
"With better informational resources, the Patent and Trademark Office could offer patent applicants who know they have significant inventions the option of a rigorous and public peer review that would produce a "gold-plated" patent much less vulnerable to court challenge."

The other controversial plan is to appoint a national CTO as a cabinet level role. The CTOI would oversee the opening up of government communications to the voters and will have a specific responsibility to ensure that government communications are opened up as much as possible.

Other plans include a reexamination of the wireless spectrum to see if it can be used more effectively, a $10bn program to digitise medical records and reassessing the speed limits for broadband, currently 200kbps.

He unveiled the plan before going on an official visit to the Google campus, becoming the seventh presidential candidate to do so. After greeting employees on the site and in 40 remote locations he settled down for a fireside chat with Eric Schmitt.

"After a particularly open-ended first question ("What is it that you're going to do that's exceptional?"), Obama looked out and asked, "Is this the kind of interview that you guys went through?" wrote Andrew McLaughlin, director of Public Policy and Government Affairs for Google in his blog.

"(The answer is "yes," except we went through eight of them, and they focused more on how to sort 32-bit integers and less on how to counter the threat of global terrorism)."