Gigaom suggests Philip Johnson of J&J in line for USPTO Directorship

Quoting emails from Harold Wegner, Gigom suggests that Philip Johnson of Johnson & Johnson is in line for the Director position at the US Patent Office.


The Gigaom post included the text:


In December, Johnson testified before the Senate on behalf of the 21st Century Patent Coalition, a group of companies who opposed a bill that would have made it easier for defendants to challenge low-quality patents, and to recover legal costs in the face of frivolous patent lawsuits.



Members of the Patent Coalition include:



3M
Abbott
Air Liquide
Air Products
American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA)
AstraZeneca
BP
Baxter Healthcare Corporation
Beckman Coulter
Boston Scientific
Bridgestone Americas Holding, Inc.
Bristol-Myers Squibb
Cargill, Inc.
Caterpillar
CheckFree
Cummins Inc.
Dow Chemical Company
DuPont
Eastman Chemical Company
Electronics for Imaging
Eli Lilly and Company
Exxon Mobil Corporation
General Electric



General Mills
Genzyme
GlaxoSmithKline
Henkel Corporation
Hoffman-La Roche
Illinois Tool Works Inc.
Johnson & Johnson
Medtronic
Merck
Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Milliken & Company
Northrop Grumman Corporation
Novartis
Patent Café.com, Inc.
PepsiCo, Inc.
Pfizer
Procter & Gamble
SanDisk Corporation
Texas Instruments
USG Corporation
United Technologies
Weyerhaeuser
Zimmer

See also Views on the Patent Reform Act of 2007 by the Coalition.

The Gigaom post neglected to mention that former USPTO Director David Kappos is currently senior advisor to
Partnership for American Innovation. See IPBiz post Kappos ridicules idea that "patent system is broken"