I attended the FTC's Patent "town meeting" in San Jose on March 18 (complete set of slides from the meetings are available to download here).
This is my first formal foray into policy work, and I'm finding it interesting. I'm fairly skeptical of how "open" the process is and whether it will really generate changes to the proposals that are floating about out there. (For example, though the FTC/AIPLA events are being billed as "town meetings," participants have to pay $265 to attend -- unless you're a student, academic, patent agent or government employee, in which case the price is reduced to $60.)
What struck me as completely absent from the framework presented at the "town meeting" is a voice for the public interest impact of the proposed patent reforms. Because of that, I'm endeavoring to draft a public interest response to these reforms. In light of this, I would welcome any thoughts the public may have on these proposals. Please email me your thoughts or insert a comment on this blog. As specific questions arise, or a good working draft is in place, I'll post more information here.