With summer 2010 drawn to a close, two seemingly unrelated news items have returning high school and college seniors up in arms: The dismal U.S. economy remains stagnant, and Snookie, the Situation and the rest of the cast from MTV’s “Jersey Shore” cannot get their names trademarked.
As with everybody else, young people on the eve of entering the job market heard the dismal reports all summer long. Headlines about a double-dip recession and stubbornly high unemployment had everyone eager to simply stick their heads in the sand.
But when news broke across the Twitterverse recently that Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino was getting resistance from officials in his attempts to trademark such cultural gems as “Gym, Tan, Laundry” and “Grenade Free America,” young people began to wonder if there was a connection between that resistance and the economy’s resistance to every type of stimulus the government could throw at it. Turns out, there may be.
There is growing consensus that the economic crisis is due in part to an innovation crisis. Research and development by U.S. companies has dropped significantly in this recession. Recently, the White House proposed $100 billion to boost the research and development tax credit for business. The Obama administration touted the plan as necessary to ensure America’s position as a leading innovator.
Others, however, see a more fundamental problem. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the funnel through which most U.S. ingenuity flows, is hopelessly overflowing. The office has an estimated backlog of 1.2 million applications. A patent filed today will take three to five years to issue. Many a brilliant idea lies languishing in the patent office, doomed to becoming obsolete while pending.
Also, courts that enforce intellectual property rights, themselves overburdened, are faced with applying old rules to new and rapidly changing technologies. The result is that enforcing rights to new technology takes longer and costs more, and the outcome is harder than ever to predict. Those hurt most are small businesses, traditionally seen as key to reviving the U.S. economy. Investors will not fund new ventures if businesses are unable to timely protect and properly exploit their key assets.
Delays over IP
In Los Angeles, long a hotbed of small business and innovation, the problem is particularly acute. Melanie Torbert of Melbert Design Group has seen expansion plans for her downtown L.A. apparel company placed on hold and crucial opportunities lost because of delays in securing her firm’s intellectual property.
Sarah Shaw, a consultant to small-business owners seeking to bring new products to market, sees many local entrepreneurs increasingly frustrated with their efforts to simply protect their ideas. An inventor herself, Shaw also knows firsthand the crippling costs involved with battling infringers.
Intellectual property lawyers and others in the field have known for years that the patent and trademark system is broken. So far, efforts to fix it have gone nowhere. Patent reform is now in its sixth year of debate in Congress. While everyone acknowledges that something must be done, it appears no one inside the Beltway can agree on what. Yet, a half-dozen years with no progress is quite the stalemate, even for Congress.
What is missing are large numbers of constituents who recognize the problem and demand a solution. Highlighting a connection between a broken patent office and the worst economic crisis since the depression should certainly spur a more vociferous call for reform. Widely reported attempts by “Jersey Shore” regulars to protect their (ahem) good names can only help expose that connection.
Certainly, the success of the MTV program and the newfound fame of the cast reflect the promise of innovation. Snookie, DJ Pauly D, The Situation, and J-Woww have each managed to fashion that uniquely American invention: themselves. They are now their own brand, and their nicknames and catchphrases are firmly entrenched in the American lexicon. It is a concept that young viewers of the show can so immediately grasp that they are vexed to discover that the trademark office cannot.
So, by making waves at the Patent and Trademark Office, can the phenomenally successful “Jersey Shore” spark a vigorous effort by America’s youth for its reform? Indeed, the show’s younger demographic has more at stake than most in terms of U.S. innovation.
Young people already know that their country’s economic future faces other threats besides a broken patent office. Ubiquitous news articles on emerging giants such as China and India and the related concepts of brain-drain and globalization are all front and center in the minds of the latest generation. Couple these 21st century issues with the naturally activist bent of today’s college-age crowd and maybe, just maybe, the much maligned “Jersey Shore” can leave a legacy long after cast members’ tans begin to fade.
Keith Fraser is an intellectual property lawyer for Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz in downtown Los Angeles.
