Hacking The Law

IEEE-USA IPC Building Block Position Statements

A subcommittee of the IEEE Intellectual Property Committee has undertaken to review the fundamentals of Intellectual Property Law. The goal is to develop several short position statements to be used as building blocks for IPC lobbying efforts.

I applaud this effort. Too often, IPC has found itself scrambling to react to fast-moving policy events on two fronts: (i) lobbying recent technology regulation legislation; and (ii) legislative amicus briefs. In each case, IEEE IPC too often found itself hamstrung by existing position statements, or the inability to promptly adopt new particularized position statements, even where IPC and IEEE policy is clear. Moreover, extremists on various sides of various IPC issues too often drew implications from existing policy statements, insisting that IPC take actions not clearly consistent with the best interest of IEEE and its members. Neither approach is tenable. Intellectual property policy, in this author's view, is fundamentally a question of balance, usually balancing apparently irreconcilable interests. The fulcrums of these teeter-totters are often placed far closer to the center than to the end, and many IEEE policy decisions can be rooted in an understanding how a given bill or upcoming case effectively balances, or unbalances, the issues.

Such it was with Festo v. SMC, the recent Supreme Court Patent Case, which will be the subject of another entry to follow. While members of the committee had very strong feelings with respect to the Federal Circuit's opinion, both pro and anti, and no clear consensus could be reached regarding what should be done -- there was a certain sense that IPC should be involved. While no consensus could be drawn on conclusions, when it came down to fundamental policies, the IPC reached almost unanimous agreement. This led to a near-unanimous resolution, which in turn led to the basics of the IEEE arguments for its ultimately dispositive amicus brief.

If we take our time, and do this right, I believe these position statements can guide us well into the twenty-first century.