The problem with the patent plan Obama has is that its just a patent plan.

Companies outside the US, mainly in China, keep taking everything we make, copy it and sell it cheap, thus hurting our economy because our businesses won't be able to compete against a copy of their own product.

If the patent plan is what Obama wants he should talk with other governments and get them to crack down on their counterfeiters so our businesses don't get ripped off.

Barack wants to invest in education, but cut the education inspiring NASA programs. Sounds like conflicting goals to me.

Where does it say he wants to cut the NASA education programs?

First off, America needs to get rolling on advance technologies like China/Japan.

Obama doesn't seem to know what tech/sciences we need in order to compete in the next decade.

He appears focused on the short term technologies:

“Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let's make college more affordable, and let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.”

That is slowly being done...lets move along and look at the big picture.

We got to compete against China/Japan in technology/science.

Obama wants to cut human spaceflight programs and spend the money on education.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/11/obama-pits-huma.html

Besides funding not keeping up with 'progress', here are three major problems in our federally funded basic research programs:

1. Making sure new PhDs have job opportunities. Many don't. I can make the case that our current dismal global financial situation is due to out-of-work physics PhDs getting into the financial world (and not knowing how it really works) with these 'un-understandable' derivatives. We would have been much better off had they done physics instead.

2. Established scientists with good track records should be given 5-year research grant horizons instead of 3-years.

and

3. We need much more science representation in the Executive Branch. A cabinet position to begin with.

Last, as an early member of the Mars Underground/Case For Mars (human exploration), I've decided human exploration of the planets at this stage of our evolutions is a bad idea. We should invest in our basic research infrastructure and let those fabulous robots do the discovering on Mars and other solar system entities. So far the robots are doing a great job with no lunch, sleep, or therapy breaks. They are relatively (compared to a human expedition) cheap as well.

Obama answered our questions on science and technology! Check it out:

http://sharp.sefora.org/people/presidential-candidates/barack-obama-presidential-candidate/

Obama's 2007 idea for gold-plating patents is a recycled plan of three law professors from 2005. Apart from being derivative, it isn't a very good idea.

See post on IPBiz:
Gold-plating of patents: Obama's bad AND recycled idea

People must realize that government should never support an industry as an end to a means. Research must be viable to the industry it hopes to benefit...and in that case, the industry will support it.

Government has done well in pushing research for its own needs, such as rockets for ICBMs, nuclear physics for weapons and power systems (nuke-subs), and secure communications technologies. In these cases, the government has the guidance of at least somewhat clear requirements and the engineering to guide related development.

Government should never try to lead industry in research funding where it shouldn't be. I think recent years has seen an improvement in this area, but not enough. This coming administration promises to reverse this trend and have political driven agendas driving research for industrial needs. It would be better for government not to take as much corporate money and allow the companies to invest in such research without government "guidance" when doing so.

For instance, NASA should handover manned space flight to commercial companies (over time), which are ready to take over. They could allow the commercial businesses to continue to develop with lower taxes until regular operation and without imposing requirements for lower taxes such as low CO2 emissions on launch vehicles and such. NASA could take that huge budget for manned space flight and actually fund critical needs such as hypersonic research, supersonic noise reduction, enhanced satellite imagery and propulsion, etc. These are things that are vital to national security (hence, they should know how to guide research) and will also end up benefiting industry.

Why does this magazine consistently read like a liberal mouthpiece? First it treats global warming as obviously a product of man, then publishes quotes from Obama's campaign web site that asserts Bush's administration as "one of the most anti-science administrations".

I'll leave it to the reader to find the double-digit yearly increase in boondoggle science funding, but even if the Bush administration gave NO money to science, it would not be the same as being "anti-science".

I am not anti-cancer research just because I haven't given any money to cancer lately. This is the same sort of nonsense that let's people say that Bush is anti-stemcell research just because he only funds research on a few lines.

A person is "anti-something" when he acts actively to prevent that something. Not funding a cause is not the same as being against it. In the case of the Bush administration, not funding something is to accidentally be "pro-Constitution", since most of what we fund with the federal government is not permitted under the Constitution.

Where is it written or ordered that governments have a moral obligation to pursue the development of the sciences. Please stay out and let the market decide. Look at the mess we have on our hands now. Take a guess as to who caused it. Government types like to tinker with society (much to our detriment)When things go bad these same types will use the failures for an excuse to further tinkering. Please leave us alone!