Science and innovation are under attack

T-rump has proposed "drastic cuts" to pretty much everything.  And while they all hurt in some way, the ones that make me nauseous are the ones that are related to the sciences.  Who needs weather forecasting?  Who needs any sort of public health information?  Who needs food that meets certain standards?  These are all things that are likely to be cut off.  

No more ability to keep us healthy. And no more ability to research and innovate - no that has to be left to private companies who can profit from it.

But on that note, there's another interesting twist here.  During Biden's presidency, there was an uptick in the number of patents that were filed.  The patent and trademark office protects these private companies (and individuals) when they invent something new. With the advances in computers, machine learning, and our ability to make physical things using 3D printing, there have been more patents filed.

So Biden, realizing that there was not enough space in the DC office and not enough people willing to relocate to DC anyway, took a different approach.  He implemented a "work from anywhere" program for patent examiners, and opened a satellite office in Atlanta to take some of the burden off of DC.

T-rump has told all government workers that they need to "return to the office" in DC, even if they were hired with the explicit agreement that they could work from anywhere.  And it appears as though he wants to close the satellite office in Atlanta, too.

As news of this unfolds, we are hearing that many of the patent examiners will simply quit,  rather than move to DC, and have an unknown office arrangement (there wouldn't be enough space if they all moved).  Besides, the cost of living is too high, and surely the pressure on them will mount.

And that means that the patent process will slow to a crawl.  If companies know that innovation that they want to protect may take a significant amount of time to go through the process, it seems likely they will be reluctant to innovate at the same pace.

Or perhaps they start patenting in Europe or elsewhere, which moves innovation out of the US.

These are dark times.