FEATURED
Innovation Gadfly
- August 29, 2025
1,501 views 7 min

Trump’s Plan for Patent Tax: A New Approach to Corporate Fairness

In an era where intellectual property (IP) drives economic dominance, the United States faces a critical challenge: multinational corporations offshoring their patent portfolios to low-tax havens, eroding the nation’s tax base and undermining fair competition. Recent proposals from President Donald Trump’s Commerce Department transition team offer a bold solution—an annual tax on patents valued at […]

33 POSTS
Paul Morinville is Founder and Executive Director of SPARK Innovation.  SPARK Innovation strives to create an policy environment ...
FEATURED
Innovation Gadfly
- August 25, 2025
1,097 views 6 min

The Tiny Words That Could Cripple American Innovation

Imagine a company that spends years, millions of dollars, and countless hours on a breakthrough product, only to have its intellectual property (IP) stolen by a single sentence hidden in a routine document. Unfortunately, this isn’t a hypothetical scenario. It’s the central issue in Vicor Corporation v. International Trade Commission, a case that threatens to dismantle […]

33 POSTS
Paul Morinville is Founder and Executive Director of SPARK Innovation.  SPARK Innovation strives to create an policy environment ...
FEATURED
Innovation Gadfly
- August 4, 2025
1,092 views 10 min

Time to Turn the US Rejection Office back into the US Patent Office: Part 3

USPTO’s Office of Patent Quality Assurance (OPQA) results show that US patent examiners adhere tightly to performance incentives that value speed and volume over quality. See Parts 1` and 2 of this series. Here in Part 3, we drill into the quality element of the patent examiners performance and appraisal plan (PAP) to identify criteria […]

0 POSTS

Julie Burke has a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of London College of Science, Technology, a ...

FEATURED
Innovation Gadfly
- June 24, 2025
1,208 views 10 min

SPARK US Innovation Opposes PERA: A Call for Amendment to Protect American Innovation

The United States has long been a beacon of innovation, driving global advancements in technology and securing economic and national security through intellectual property protections. However, this leadership is under threat, and SPARK US Innovation, a group dedicated to advancing critical emerging technologies (CET), is sounding the alarm. SPARK opposes the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of […]

33 POSTS
Paul Morinville is Founder and Executive Director of SPARK Innovation.  SPARK Innovation strives to create an policy environment ...
FEATURED
Innovation Gadfly
- June 1, 2025
2,098 views 11 min

Reinventing Patent Quality: A NIST-Based Program for the USPTO 

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the cornerstone of America’s innovation engine, issuing patents that fuel technological advancement and economic growth. However, perceptions of poor patent quality, driven by vague claim language, inconsistent examinations, costly litigation, and occasional bad rulings by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) or the […]

33 POSTS
Paul Morinville is Founder and Executive Director of SPARK Innovation.  SPARK Innovation strives to create an policy environment ...
FEATURED
Innovation Gadfly
- May 27, 2025
2,571 views 7 min

Time to Turn the US Rejection Office Back into the US Patent Office – Part 2

Analyzing the US Rejection Office Given the USPTO’s pro-rejection tendencies introduced in Part 1 of this series, one might expect the agency would function like a well-oiled machine to properly reject claims in a smooth and efficient fashion. MPEP guidance on how to examine and reject claims is extensive, straightforward and reasonable. Examples include: MPEP […]

0 POSTS

Julie Burke has a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of London College of Science, Technology, a ...

FEATURED
Innovation Gadfly
- April 18, 2025
1,857 views 7 min

Why Patent Reform Is Urgent: How China Exploits U.S. Disclosures and Undermines Innovation

In 2007, the United States led the world in 60 out of 64 technologies critical to our economic and national security.  However, warning signs that a shift had occurred emerged in 2018 when it was reported that China accounted for 48% of global Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup funding in 2017, surpassing the U.S., which held […]

33 POSTS
Paul Morinville is Founder and Executive Director of SPARK Innovation.  SPARK Innovation strives to create an policy environment ...
FEATURED
Innovation Gadfly
- April 9, 2025
3,416 views 9 min

Weaponized Fairness: Big Tech’s Dirty Secret in the U.S. Patent System

There’s a nasty little game going on in the U.S. patent system—one that no one in Washington seems willing to talk about. Big Tech corporations, the same ones screaming the loudest about imaginary “patent trolls” and “bad patents”, are quietly withholding prior art from the USPTO. Then, when those patents get issued, they turn around […]

33 POSTS
Paul Morinville is Founder and Executive Director of SPARK Innovation.  SPARK Innovation strives to create an policy environment ...
FEATURED
Innovation Gadfly
- February 9, 2025
2,023 views 9 min

Our Unhealthy Patent System in the US

With Robert Kennedy, Jr. making the rounds in Congress for his confirmation, many institutions do not like what he has to say about the American food industry, the ag industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the fast-food industry, and more. President Trump has stated that the health of our nation is something that must be addressed, and […]

-12 POSTS
Raymond Van Dyke is an IP/Patent Attorney and Educator. In his practice, he helps a variety of clients in their IP matters. He spe ...