The tech industry applauds President Obama’s call for and outline of a new generation of innovation. The President appropriately offered a strategy to develop more advanced information technology infrastructure, to promote progress in clean energy, health care and basic research and also to provide a better educated workforce. But there are other important issues related to innovation that will also need to be addressed if our national innovation policy is to be as robust as we need it to be. Competition policy and Intellectual Property issues which can either help or hinder innovation must also be properly balanced and aligned if we are to maximize the potential of innovation in our society.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association supports open markets, open systems and open networks and vigorous competitive markets to boost innovation. The following statement can be attributed to CCIA President & CEO Ed Black:
“Real innovation will help build more high paying jobs and a sustainable economic recovery. The President has long recognized the role of innovation in the economy as a tool to advance goals to improve health care, communications and the nations infrastructure. Today’s broad plan will serve as a roadmap as the nation makes decisions on where to invest research and education spending.
“A strong innovation policy is needed as an antidote to the binge economy that created bubbles in housing and credit markets. We need a long-term strategy and skepticism toward short-term gain based on speculation on overvalued assets.
“The Administration’s innovation strategy unfortunately does not recognize one major problem in innovation policy today – that the patent system has become more a burden than a benefit for major sectors of the economy. It threatens to smother much innovation by diverting resources and attention away from research and real innovation towards legal fees, settlements, and litigation. Intellectual property issues in general need to be updated in a balanced way to respond to our new digital world.”