...and has no static URLs for patent applications.
...and just gave a contract for $800K to a company with no experience, that lied about its incorporation date (it was in business for eight days), and that has produced no product for the USPTO thus far after months, causing at least two other bidders (myself included) to protest formally. See http://www.gao.gov/products/B-410658.
The USPTO does a lot of things, and some of them well, but IT is not one of them.
Let's hope she all but kills the "business method" patents (for which Microsoft killed the reform in Congress [1], but of which Google owns a lot, too [2]), if not most software patents, as well as any other patents that are related to the patents in the Alice ruling [3].
I'm also sure that's an endeavor the "new" Microsoft will support, too (unless the "new" Microsoft is actually the old Microsoft with a fresh coat of PR paint all over it, in which case it probably won't).
Seems like many of the comments here are/will be railing on patent trolls and disgusting corporate enterprises making money off of ideas they claim to have come up with. I actually don't know or really care too much about those issues, but as a student working with patent data in a research lab, I hope to goodness they address their bureaucracy. The patent data they put out is way behind the technology we have today and it's really hampering research in that area, and consolidating it is something we're still dealing with that doesn't even touch on the disambiguation problem yet!
You might be surprised to find that your assertion, reduced to a stereotype, then used in a metaphor about familiar situations meets the connotation if not also the definition of a trope for my earlier upvoters.
Professors have tons of leadership experience. They direct their own labs (attracting + allocating resources), train future leaders (graduate students + postdocs), collaborate with other labs, communicate their work to a general audience.... and so on. A tenured professor is also unbiased, in principle.
The academic world doesn't get the credit it deserves.
All my personal experience with academia says the opposite. The only thing they do is chase grants, but they are awful at collaboration and people management. The whole thing only works because they get nearly free labor from grad students and post docs.
Unbiased? No more or less than anyone who quits their job to take a government job. People try to claim there is a conflict of interest in this case because Lee used to work in industry. Well, colleges are a huge user of the USPTO. In fact many schools patent troll nowadays.
In practice? No so much. One could write volumes about how the wheels quickly come off the wagon in each area you listed, since they all happen inside of very specific, narrow, and rigid constructs, ones that seldom translate well.
The analogy that comes to mind would be claiming that having experience leading a team of first-year resident physicians prepares one to be good at motivating people from a broad variety of backgrounds to work hard and long hours.
Which isn't to say that all academics can't excel outside that environment, of course. Talented, gifted academics who would excel at almost anything in which they're engaged will also succeed outside of academia.
Isn't this more like "professors _can have_ tons of leadership experience"? Just because someone is "managing" or a "manager" doesn't mean they do a good job at it or know what they're doing.
If patents are really hindering innovation in software, then maybe it will be more beneficial to Google and to her personally to disrupt the status quo.
Hurray I guess, but would we be saying the same thing if Jamie Dimon or one of his deputies were put in charge of the SEC? Damned if you do, damned if you don't, hoping for the best.
How is the government certain that there is no conflict of interest here? She definitely holds google stock as an employee. Who is to say that doesn't bias her decision making?
I'm sure it does. Google culture is pretty heavily ingrained among employees. And Google seems to have taken a strong interest in acquiring influence in the US government. They also have a former employee holding the Chief Internet Officer role at the White House, and Google has heavily supported over a dozen Congressional campaigns, which has actually come to fruition in the form of those Congresspeople sending blatant "please don't rule against Google" letters to the EU Parliament.
...and has no static URLs for patent applications.
...and just gave a contract for $800K to a company with no experience, that lied about its incorporation date (it was in business for eight days), and that has produced no product for the USPTO thus far after months, causing at least two other bidders (myself included) to protest formally. See http://www.gao.gov/products/B-410658.
The USPTO does a lot of things, and some of them well, but IT is not one of them.