I just finished reading the GAO report on the patent office internal problems and management ills... I can only say, "ugh, what a mess." Now, one might read that report and think, "Oh, that is the way government agencies work... what do you expect? Surely it isn't much different from problems at the FCC, the FDA, and so on?" Perhaps it isn't. So what's the big deal?

The problem is, suppose, just suppose, suspending disbelief, that we free-marketers at PFF are generally correct in two of our main assertions a) A lot of regulation by agencies like the FCC, the FTC is either not necessary or affirmatively harmful and b) that intellectual property rights by contrast are important and growing in importance as the economy shifts to one based in intellecutal capital. That means that a disfunctional patent authority matters in a way that a partly disfunctional FCC does not.

So how do you unbureaucratize a bureaucracy? Has it ever been done? I don't know of any examples. Could it be privatized? I don't know of any proposals. Frustrating.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 11:49 AM | Patents

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