Following His Letter To Lincoln, Kappos Defends U.S. Patent System

Tired of seeing the U.S. patent system being used as a punching bag, David Kappos, former director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and now a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, took the unusual step of writing a defense of the system in a popular daily paper. This follows an earlier piece, “An Open Letter To Abraham Lincoln From David Kappos,” which appeared last month on the Managing Intellectual Property website. Lincoln, Kappos wrote, was a strong supporter of the patent system, even in the face of attempts to weaken it because “patent sharks” were buying up patents on agricultural tools and threatening to sue farmers. In his recent newspaper column, Kappos does acknowledge the system could use a fix or two, notably “full funding of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and enhanced transparency to increase patent quality.”