The New York Times (December 1, 2013)
Theoretically “patents provide an incentive for inventors to generate new products and services by giving them a temporary monopoly on their creations.” Over little more than a decade, however, patent applications have more than tripled to 576,000 in 2012 and “the Patent and Trademark Office appears to have granted many that are overly broad or vague.” The result has been frivolous lawsuits filed by patent trolls. Currently proposed legislation in Congress will help reduce the frivolous lawsuits, but it doesn’t “directly address the underlying problem of vague and overbroad patents.”
Tags: Applications, Congress, Frivolous, Inventors, Lawsuits, Legislation, Overbroad, Patent and Trademark Office, Patent trolls, Patents, Vague
Washington Post (October 17)
“At almost literally the eleventh hour, Congress has approved legislation that will end a costly 16-day partial government shutdown and avert the potentially greater disaster of a default on federal obligations.” Unfortunately, the deal “buys only a short interval of peace.” When that period expires early next year, “it is all too possible that Congress will fail to agree and will deliver the country to the brink of another shutdown or default.”
Tags: Congress, Default, Government, Legislation, Obligations, Peace, Shutdown, U.S.
Institutional Investor (August Issue)
“Investors confront the risk of a carbon bubble fueled by stranded oil and gas assets” should major governments decide to impose strict carbon legislation to combat climate change. One recent report asserts that “to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius between now and 2050, only 20 percent of the world’s fossil fuel reserves can be extracted and burned.”
Tags: Carbon, Climate change, Extraction, Fossil fuel, Gas, Global temperatures, Governments, Investors, Legislation, Oil, Reserves, Risk
Financial Times (May 14, 2013)
In the UK, the state-owned Royal Mail may be taken public this fall in line with legislation passed in 2011. In marked contrast to the U.S. Postal Service, which is hemorrhaging money, the Royal Mail’s “fortunes have been improving as a result of modernisation and the boom in internet-related packet deliveries,” leading observers to value it at £2bn-£3bn.
Tags: Boom, Internet, IPO, Legislation, Royal Mail, UK, USPS
