The United States owes a great debt to its inventors. Far from being grateful to them, it places every obstruction in their way and makes it enormously difficult to secure a patent.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I firmly believe that the U.S. has to honor its debt.
I fully believe that the U.S. has the obligation to honor its debt.
A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
The problem is that the U.S. government is the biggest debtor in the world, and those depending on it to take care of them will only become poorer.
The amount of U.S. debt held by countries such as China and Japan is at a historic high, with foreign investors holding half of America's publicly held debt. This dependence raises the specter that other nations will be able to influence our policies in ways antithetical to American interests.
In England, an inventor is regarded almost as a crazy man, and in too many instances, invention ends in disappointment and poverty. In America, an inventor is honoured, help is forthcoming, and the exercise of ingenuity, the application of science to the work of man, is there the shortest road to wealth.
In the United States we have the great Harvard Business School, but America is the country with the greatest debt in the world.
If people don't get paid for their inventions, that's not a good thing. In the case of many patents, there are people who aren't in a position to take them to the next level. If you don't enforce your rights, no one is going to enforce them for you.
The United States is still an enormous generator of innovation, from which other nations have long benefitted. But we now also have the opportunity to benefit from innovation taking place around the world.
It's very hard for individual inventors to get paid. For the same reason that private equity is valuable - broadly, that's a good thing - in the case of patents, many that own them aren't in a good position to take the next step.