Yesterday, the Democratic House leadership released the "Innovation Agenda", a portfolio of policy proposals designed to keep America friendly to innovative businesses.

There is some good stuff in there. But there's also this little rotten apple spoiling the barrel:

"Protect the intellectual property of American innovators worldwide, strengthen the patent system, and end the diversion of patent fees."

I don't have any problem with ending diversion of patent fees, but "protect the intellectual property of American innovators worldwide" is code for creating more and more draconian copyright penalties in trade agreements with other countries, which further stifles innovation around the world and comes back to bite American innovators when the content companies then push for "harmonizing" US law with the very laws that the US itself has pushed for internationally. And if anything, the patent system in many industries is too strong right now,

Fortunately, even some of the Democrats' most vociferous partisan supporters see through this terrible, lobbyist-induced section. Matt Stoller wrote a detailed critique on MyDD, one of the top liberal blogs, which was then echoed by Duncan Black (Atrios) and Matthew Yglesias.

Copyfighters should continue to engage with the partisan political side of the blogosphere. With their help, perhaps party leaders will think twice next time before blindly taking the content industry's word and incorporating their destructive ideas.