Government workers don't deserve unions if the caliber of government worker we have is "Sure, Elon can have root access" anyway

He thinks "national security" is the magic phrase that allows him to decree anything.

So far no one has proved this magic wrong

Yeah, nobody's stopping him, so why should he care?

The order by its terms appears to cover those who examine design patents too (but not trademark examiners)

I'm still waiting for him to weigh in on the national security implications of plant patents

Since the law includes separate provisions for sexual and asexual reproduction they will be banning all plant patents as examples of DEI

Lawsuit time!

Let's just dispense with examiners altogether. Make it patents a "registration-only" system and let the courts figure it all out. (also this is an absolutely terrible idea - they should definitely not do it which makes me wonder if they will)

That is insane!

Under this standard, every aspect of our economy has national security implications. The conclusion that flows from this, for Trump, is that he should control all aspects of the economy and, hopefully, get a slice of the action, either directly or thru his “protection” racket. Pure Putin.

Martial law …that’s where the US is heading.

I’m not so sure. If people keep acquiescing, he may not need it.

Trump will go for it even if he doesn’t “need” it.

Which was fine in WW2 when we were fighting fascists. Not so cool when the Capo is trying to turn the US fascist.

Appreciation for days when it was obvious what was narrative from The Onion or written onion- ish flare vs actual occurrences

“Asked what they thought of the union abolishment, a Teamsters rep was quoted as saying…”

whaaaaat?

Holy shit, wat In addition to the labor rights implications, if they try to strong-arm return-to-office policies against a workforce that had been substantially remote for 20 years, a huge fraction of examiners will quit

IIRC, secrecy orders / national security review is *referred* by USPTO to appropriate defense agency

I have a sinking feeling they’re going to mess with granting of foreign filing licenses

How would that be related to terminating the CBA/union representation? (Also can't you just wait 6 months after filing?)

It’s not topically related, I just see them meddling more and more with settled practice, not knowing what they’re doing, and they’re creating friction wherever they can to gain leverage over private parties

ah yeah, def agree -- they're shockingly brazen in trying to break even settled things, things that have historically worked very well for business interest in our country

And they could really mess with an applicant by abusing national security review. Could grind all their applications to a halt and forbid disclosing or transmitting data

I gotcha, it's just ... it's too insane! They should not do that and yet, like you say, i have no faith they won't try (and then try to unbreak what they break)

You can have your foreign filing license if you just give us 10% of your company . . .

Yep. Hard to "return" to an office where you never worked, in a city where you never lived, and where they don't have space for you even if you did

Isn't that the point? 🤷🏻‍♂️

Wow.

They did the same thing to EPA earlier this month.

I am sure that his venture capitalist masters want to use AI to hoover up all the ideas for themselves by replacing human patent reviewers. Human employees who have ethics and support from a union would make this difficult.