As I have maintained through the years, no other country can out-think and out-innovate American entrepreneurs. There is a reason that the rest of the world looks to the US when they want the latest, greatest inventions and technological breakthroughs.

The trouble is that America also has a propensity for red tape that puts obstacles in the way of these innovative developers.

Now comes word that the US Patent and Trademark Office is looking at a way to fast track the granting of patents. Can you guess the secret? If you guessed that adding an additional fee on top of the $545 filing fee would expedite review, then you would be right!

According to a story in The Wall Street Journal, “The system will allow applicants to essentially select which innovations are the most important for patent examiners to tackle first.”

While I applaud this initiative, it fails to address a much bigger problem: the growing theft of intellectual property of American products overseas. So after a US company gets fast approval, a company in China, let us say, slaps their own label on the product and makes it theirs. The US company that earned the patent, winds up getting nothing for their hard work and patience.

Counterfeit products produced and sold freely at markets in China and exported around the world cost Americans an estimated 750,000 jobs a year and American businesses $250 billion. The bulk of the world’s pirated material comes from China. If China for whatever reason can not close this down, then the Chinese Government must make restitution to US companies and workers being cheated because of their ineptness to govern. We must declare war on Intellectual Property theft and provide the resources to fight it.

Let us make sure that when US inventors play by the rules, the US makes sure that other countries do too.