Rep. Maloney Hails Opening of New U.S. Patent Office for Cornell-Technion Engineering School Slated for Roosevelt Island
(New York, NY) Today, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney joined officials in academia and government to celebrate the opening of a new United States Department of Commerce “Innovators' Resource Center” that will ultimately be sited on the campus of the engineering school being built on Roosevelt Island by Cornell and Technion universities. Joining her at today's announcement were Acting U.S. Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank; New York City Deputy Mayor Robert Steel; Cornell University President David Skorton; U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer; Council Member Jessica Lappin; and NYC Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky. The announcement took place in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood at offices being subleased to the Cornell-Technion School by Google, Inc.
“New York City took another important step today to secure its place as a center of American innovation,” said Congresswoman Maloney, who represents Roosevelt Island, the site of the future engineering school. “This new center recognizes the fact that high-tech inventors and start-ups need a patent office for the 21st century, when ideas can move at the speed of Google. Even though US exports are now at record levels, the speed of change has itself changed: if we hope to remain competitive on the world stage, we should see to it that anyone with an innovative idea can obtain the protection of a patent without being tied up in red tape,” she said.
The Innovators' Resource Center will provide one-stop shopping for today's entrepreneurs and inventors. It will help to speed the introduction of new ideas and breakthrough products into the marketplace while serving to protect the intellectual property of high-tech pioneers and creators.
The Innovators' Resource Center is slated to move to its permanent home on Roosevelt Island in 2017, where it will comprise part of the new Cornell/NYC Tech applied sciences and engineering campus. New York's 14th Congressional District, represented by Congresswoman Maloney, is fast expanding as a high-tech center, with Facebook, Twitter, and other successful Internet companies having recently opened offices in the district.
Collaborations among business, academia and government are helping to make New York one of the fastest growing hi-tech centers in the nation. With help from the City, New York University and Columbia University have begun to develop plans to launch New York City tech campuses of their own, and Cornell officials today reiterated their eagerness to work collegially with their counterparts at other institutions of higher education in order to foster more opportunities for cross-campus collaboration.
“The city of the future is a city of entrepreneurs and innovators, a highly educated and motivated workforce, and cross-institutional and interdisciplinary collaboration. I have seen the city of the future rising. And it is ours,” concluded Congresswoman Maloney.
