Micros Eye IP Protections (and Run Away)
Jan 14th, 2008 | By Dawn R. Rivers | Category: ResearchMost patent and trademark holders may be microbusinesses and individuals but most microbusiness owners are not patent or trademark holders. That is the big take-away from a member survey released last week by the National Association for the Self-Employed. What’s really interesting is that 25% of microbusiness owners have looked into those intellectual property protections and 36% of them say that patent and trademark reform is important for their businesses. Clearly, interest is there. So, what stops those microbusiness owners from obtaining patents and trademarks? And what kinds of policies would improve matters for them? Judging from survey responses, whatever reforms might make the system more micro-friendly are not included in the proposals that are currently on the table. And it’s really too bad that that the lawmakers involved haven’t even noticed that these questions are neither being asked nor answered.
