Should Portland be home to a new patent office?
In our current economic state, more government spending is generally something to avoid unless those expenditures are going to help create jobs and stimulate the economy.
That’s exactly what Senator Ron Wyden wants to do. The Oregon democrat wants to set up a new patent office in Portland, a proposal that’s been met with much support.
Through this patent office, Wyden hopes to create an estimated 200 to 500 jobs, which would result in a lower unemployment rate for Portland as well as the rest of the state.
Along with the potential patent office, Oregon recently gained a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration marine operations center. Previously located in Seattle, the NOAA office will provide around 175 additional jobs to Oregon’s unemployed.
The NOAA office is a state-of-the-art facility that serves as a home port for four NOAA research and survey ships and provides administrative, engineering, maintenance and logistical support for NOAA’s Pacific fleet. NOAA signed a 20-year lease with the Port of Newport in 2009 following a rather competitive lease-obtaining process.
Since the passing of the America Invent Act, a bill focusing on the reform of the patent application process, three new satellite patent offices need to be established across the country. Detroit has already laid claim on one, but Wyden hopes to secure Oregon’s grasp on one of the remaining two offices.
The America Invent Act, which Obama signed into law in September of this year, reformed the old way of obtaining a patent license from a “first-to-invent” system to a “first-to-file” system. More offices are needed to accommodate the expected influx of patents.
Portland isn’t the only city vying for the new patent office; both Denver and San Francisco have expressed serious interest in having the office to call their own. While Portland is an up-and-coming city that has seen enormous growth in the past few years, it’s not as technologically advanced as San Francisco or Denver.
“You strip it all down and someone in the west is going to get one of these offices,” Wyden was quoted as saying in The Oregonian. “We need to pull out all the stops.”
Despite Portland’s lack in the technology department, it does have one thing that San Francisco and the other cities don’t have: Nike. Jeff Manning, a journalist for The Oregonian, said, “Companies like Nike obtain a prolific number of design patents and zealously guard those designs.”
With a powerhouse company like Nike in our backyard bringing in thousands upon thousands of patents every year, a patent office in the good ol’ City of Roses seems like a match made in heaven.
While participation in the patent process is one thing federal officials in charge of the zoning project will take into consideration, effect on quality of life is another variable. Detroit was chosen as the first location for this very reason; with its high unemployment rates and poor living conditions, the patent office is just what the local economy needs.
One surprising thing about this possible patent office is the lack of information readily available on it. A simple Google search will not yield much information. Also interesting is the fact that not many students are aware of its existence.
“I’d never heard of it until now,” said environmental engineering freshman Tayler Lynch. When asked about the patent office. Lynch’s response was ubiquitous, as many students said they had no idea that Wyden was trying to obtain a national patent office for Portland, or even what a patent office is.
It is normal for something that’s not getting much media coverage to go ignored, but why is there such little information out there, anyway? Oregon has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, so when something big like this could possibly help fix it, the media should be gung-ho for it.
Securing jobs for the unemployed seems to be a top priority in Wyden’s book. And honestly, it should be everyone’s main concern.
Once the news of this new patent office really gets out, it should receive more widespread support. We need people employed and spending money in order to stimulate the economy and get us out of this recession.
Creating permanent jobs is the best way to do this. A new patent office would be highly beneficial to both the local and the national economy.
