Hiring is company's latest move in escalating patent fights
Another way to think about the headline on this post is that Google – increasingly embroiled and active in patent machinations — has hired an intellectual property expert away from us; you, me, the public at large.
Suzanne Michel has been one of the Federal Trade Commission’s leading patent and antitrust officials for 11 years. She played a prominent role in writing an FTC report released this spring: “The Evolving IP Marketplace: Aligning Patent Notice and Remedies With Competition” (.pdf).
From a Bloomberg report:
Michel, 49, is leaving her post as deputy director of policy planning at the FTC, where she worked for more than 11 years on patent antitrust issues and patent policy. She will join the company’s legal team, Aaron Zamost, a Google spokesman, said, declining to elaborate on what her responsibilities will be.
Michel was the chief writer of a patent report the FTC issued in March, which analyzed the evolution of the patent system in the U.S. and made recommendations on how to improve patent law to promote innovation. The report also made suggestions to the courts on how to make patent remedies more effective.
Talented people move from the ranks of government to private industry every day, whether it is for new challenges, more money, or both. There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with that, of course.
But the public does pay a price, and in this case, it’s a price apparently spurred by the very problems Michel was attempting to address while working for us.
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