Things are looking grim for intellectual property policy. The new acting head of the USPTO is one of the prime culprits behind the DMCA, and the PTO's proud as heck.

During his six years as Counsel to the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, and Staff Director and Deputy General Counsel for the House Committee on the Judiciary--the birthplace of all federal intellectual property statutory law--he guided enactment of major patent, trademark and copyright policy, including the most sweeping revisions to American patent law since 1952, the 1999 American Inventors Protection Act, and the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the 1998 law implementing two landmark international treaties protecting creative works in the digital age.

Buried in that run-on sentence is the fact that the land-grab on stupid patents can now proceed unrestrained. By the time we're done, there won't be a free idea left for us to use. (via Techdirt)