Make Overtime Pay Tax-Exempt
Cut the hardest working people in the country a break when it comes to working hard.
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This idea is active.Increasing Trade, Exports, and Overall Competitiveness »Add your comment for Idea: Make Overtime Pay Tax-Exempt -
I agree
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44 votes
This idea is active.Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »Require Appointees to be Qualified
1 comment for Idea: Require Appointees to be QualifiedRequire (by law) that political appointees have actually worked for the agency they are about to oversee.
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9 votes
This idea is active.Increasing Trade, Exports, and Overall Competitiveness »Patents
Set the shortened statutory period for a response to 1 month (30 days) for all office actions instead of 3 months for most actions. Patent Attorneys and Examiners are human beings. They forget details over time. Faster responses mean less re-work. In a digital age a 1-month response time is more than adequate. Moreover, if more time is needed, applicant would still have access to extensions of time under 37 CFR 1.136. ...more »
1 comment for Idea: PatentsSet the shortened statutory period for a response to 1 month (30 days) for all office actions instead of 3 months for most actions.
Patent Attorneys and Examiners are human beings. They forget details over time. Faster responses mean less re-work.
In a digital age a 1-month response time is more than adequate. Moreover, if more time is needed, applicant would still have access to extensions of time under 37 CFR 1.136.
Authority to make the change can be found in 35 USC 133.
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10 votes
This idea is active.Increasing Trade, Exports, and Overall Competitiveness »Fix/Upgrade DMV Roads and Public Transit
3 comments for Idea: Fix/Upgrade DMV Roads and Public TransitFix and upgrade Dc-Md-Va roads and transit systems. Get federal employees to work on time, with less effort, and frustration.
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13 votes
This idea is active.Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »Reduce redundant emails
Add your comment for Idea: Reduce redundant emailsReduce the amount of emails sent. A given email might be sent to a common email box 5 times or more. Legitimate messages tend to get buried or overlooked due to this self inflicted spam epidemic.
Create a system to automatically thread or group emails on the same topic.
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36 votes
This idea is active.Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »Buy e-readers
2 comments for Idea: Buy e-readersAgencies can reduce paperwork costs by using digital paperwork. I have reduced the need to print about 10,000 pages over 6 months through use of a personally purchased e-reader.
The savings on paper are substantial enough. However, when the cost of ink and printers are factored in, such purchasing decisions become a no brainer.
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13 votes
This idea is active.Increasing Trade, Exports, and Overall Competitiveness »Aggressively Protect Intellectual Property Internationally
Encourage US manufacturers to protect their intellectual property internationally. Establish tough import taxes and laws on international bodies which fail to enforce or respect intellectual property. Foreign producers can only undersell domestic manufacturers because they have learned to produce goods the same way modern countries do. If we agressively enforce intellectual property rights we, as a society, can protect ...more »
Add your comment for Idea: Aggressively Protect Intellectual Property InternationallyEncourage US manufacturers to protect their intellectual property internationally. Establish tough import taxes and laws on international bodies which fail to enforce or respect intellectual property.
Foreign producers can only undersell domestic manufacturers because they have learned to produce goods the same way modern countries do.
If we agressively enforce intellectual property rights we, as a society, can protect the advantages we have a legitimate right to.
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I agree
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68 votes
This idea is active.Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »Share savings with employees as motivation
2 comments for Idea: Share savings with employees as motivationCreate bonus structures tied to agency goals.
Example: Share budget saving with employees. If agency ABC comes in under budget, share 5% of that amount with employees in the form of a bonus.
There are disconnects between agency initiatives, and the reality of how they are achieved. Rewards should be tied to the bottom line, not the short sighted initiative.
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18 votes
This idea is active.Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »Spend agency surpluses buying back debt
Allow/encourage agencies to buy back government debt. If an agency can manage to come in under budget for a given fiscal year, they should spend the surplus buying back treasuries (Federal Debt). This would allow an agency to "look" like they are spending their whole budget (which they apparently already do), without having to actually waste the money. The treasuries could than be spent by said agency in a future "bad" ...more »
5 comments for Idea: Spend agency surpluses buying back debtAllow/encourage agencies to buy back government debt.
If an agency can manage to come in under budget for a given fiscal year, they should spend the surplus buying back treasuries (Federal Debt). This would allow an agency to "look" like they are spending their whole budget (which they apparently already do), without having to actually waste the money. The treasuries could than be spent by said agency in a future "bad" year without having to request extra funding.
Doing so would drive down borrowing rates for federal debt, and reduce the net national debt.
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8 votes
This idea is active.Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »Patents
Pertaining to Patents: Standardize claim scope and the classification system in a synchronized fashion. Warning long explanation: In patent law applicants for a patent must create a legal definition of their invention which defines the protective scope they are entitled to. The vast majority of rejections from the patent office pertain to an applicant requesting too broad of coverage or improperly drafting a claim. Most ...more »
2 comments for Idea: PatentsPertaining to Patents: Standardize claim scope and the classification system in a synchronized fashion.
Warning long explanation:
In patent law applicants for a patent must create a legal definition of their invention which defines the protective scope they are entitled to. The vast majority of rejections from the patent office pertain to an applicant requesting too broad of coverage or improperly drafting a claim. Most rejections do not pertain to bad ideas nor to someone else having the idea first.
My idea is to standardize the process of drafting claim scope in conjunction with our classification system. The office could reorganize our invention classification system to correspond to legal scope. I.e Class 1 (A Device); Class 2 (process); Class 1 subclass 1 (A device including a lever); Class 1 subclass 2 (A device including a transistor); etc.
Applicant's could than explicitly state where they think their invention should be searched. The declaration would form a legally binding portion of the invention as defined in the claim.
This idea would reduce the need for a classification department. Currently classification is VERY poorly handled and takes up a lot of time and resources.
This idea would further reduce the need for examiners to waste time searching in areas completely unrelated to the invention. Currently, applicants attempt to draft claims with the absolute broadest claim scope possible to provide the largest protection possible. This excessive broadness, however, drastically increases the work on patent examiners trying to search all possible areas with potentially applicable art.
This idea would lower the burden of obtaining a patent for small entities and pro se applicants. Small entities and pro se applications fail to get a patent most commonly due to the complexities in drafting an acceptable claim. A standardized system would drastically reduce the man hours and technical skill required in drafting a legally acceptable claim.
The quality of patents and the patent process would be drastically improved. A standardized system of claim scope could allow the issue of patentability to be discussed on the first day of patent examination. Under the current system it may take years of prosecution before a patent application is of sufficient quality that the applicant and the examiner begin to discuss the merits of the invention.
Such a system does not need to do away with the system as it exists today. The improved system could be made available to those interested, but not made to be a requirement. In order to encourage people to use the newer system, fees could be charged in conjunction with the defined scope of the invention pertaining to the claimed invention. The point would be not to penalize those wanting broad protection. Rather the point would be to provide a price break to small and pro se applicants who want a patent to protect their specific invention, but do not necessarily need excessively broad protection to do so.
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