Statement of Position

October 12, 2016

For every generation since our founders, Americans have felt very strongly that the aim of all good government is to secure for its people life, liberty and property. When government is weak in any of these it ceases to be a benefactor of its people and often becomes an impediment, or even an enabler of those who would seek to deprive us of 1 or more. Show us a country with weak or ineffective property rights and we’ll show you a weak economy and high unemployment.

In fact, as President James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10:

“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the RIGHTS OF PROPERTY originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the FIRST object of government.”

Further, when commenting in Federalist No. 43 on the proposed Constitutional recognition of invention rights, President Madison wrote “The utility of the clause will scarcely be questioned. The copyright of authors has been solemnly adjudged, in Great Britain, to be a RIGHT of common law. The right to useful inventions seems with equal reason to belong to the inventors. The public good fully coincides in both cases with the claims of the individuals.”

Therefore, not only was the protection of property an important aim of government, but the protection of ‘faculties of men’, such as the product of their mental labors or inventions, was in Madison’s words “the first object of government”. What more can be said as to the fundamental rights of inventors to their “discoveries” as recited in our Constitution. Unquestionably then, invention property rights are not privileges granted by government, but rather the inalienable property rights of inventors to be “solemnly” protected by all good government.

Not only is the protection of our ‘mental faculties’ such as inventions the principal object of government in general, but specifically it was a chief argument in favor of the very federal government who was and is entrusted with protecting them.

From Federalist No. 1:

“I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting particulars: — The utility of the union to your political prosperity — The insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve that Union — The necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed, to the attainment of this object — The conformity of the proposed Constitution to the true principles of republican government — Its analogy to your own state constitution — and lastly, The additional security which its adoption will afford to the preservation of that species of government, to liberty, and to PROPERTY.”

Despite the above facts, the present bills being considered in Congress largely ignore the rights of inventors and small truly inventive companies and instead focus on what are largely rarely or nonexisting problems fictionalized by large infringers in an effort to weaken the patent system so they might more easily destroy their small competitors. Unfortunately, some in Congress, the courts and the White House have fallen prey to or been commandeered by these red herring pretended issues and those who make such unsupported accusations. But accusation is not fact. Their proposed changes will not protect small entities. What they will do is make it easier for Chinese and large multinationals to rob and destroy inventors and other truly inventive small competitors. As a result, for inventors and small entities it has become too expensive, slow, and difficult for us to get and enforce patent rights to our inventions. All these changes are destroying us and our confidence in our patent system. The system now works mostly only for large corporations -enabling them to steal our inventions with impunity as even some courts have become as one attorney put it “lynching mobs against inventors”. All infringers want to do is measure us to the linchpin like Genghis Khan. As long as it is so easy and cheap for them to steal they will not stop using or pay for our inventions, but just keep stealing at will.

Yet, despite the problems recent changes have caused inventors and the harm they have done to the patent system and small entities, many in Congress and the White House have nearly ignored inventors. Rarely have true small entity inventors who are independent of large corporations been allowed to testify in the committees these bills are brought in.

‘https://aminventorsforjustice.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/in-the-rush-to-pass-inventor-killing-legislation-only-one-inventor-was-allowed-to-testify-in-house-judiciary-committee-hearings/

The rank and file of Congress are being railroaded by large invention thieves and their PR propaganda machines who have placed more spin on these issues than pine tar on a fastball.

For example, proponents decry ‘patent trolls’ and vague patents yet they never clearly define or identify. Inventors will tell you that’s because they don’t exist. Rather infringers dodge defining ‘patent troll’ because what they really mean are inventors and small inventive competitors. That is the true aim of Chinese and large multinational originators and proponents of these bills. China is on record as stating these changes will make it easier for them to safely infringe the patents of US holders. Their goal is not to strengthen the patent system, but to weaken it and the property rights they were intended to protect.

‘http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/05/chinese-patent-infringer-backs-us-patent-reform/
https://mises.org/blog/china-india-us-patent-reform

Infringers (invention thieves) also claim that patent suits are at an all time high, yet they ignore changes in the law with AIA (America Invents Act) which requires plaintiffs to file 1 suit for every infringer, whereas prior each suit could contain tens of infringers. They are intentionally misrepresenting the present state of the system with this and other false and misleading accusations. In fact, if one looks at the present state of the patent system inventors and their attorneys will tell you there are fewer and fewer patents issued to small entities, their patent applications and patent suits are spiraling downward while their Patent Office pendancies have shot through the roof, and many are now protecting their discoveries by trade secret as patents are no longer a viable means of protecting them. Unfortunately, few inventions are capable of being protected in that manner so many will be taken with their creator to the grave.

Recently for example, the Patent Office web site showed only 3 of the last 46 issued utility patents were issued to small entities -with annual sales under 15M. Historically, small entity patents have generally ran about 50-60%, but have been as high as 80%.

http://www.inventionstatistics.com/Independent_Inventor_Statistics.html

Now, according to the count of the above recent PTO web page they are only about 6%. Based on that small entity issued patents have plummeted.

Do you know how to make a Stradivarius violin? Neither does anyone else. Why? There was no protection for creations in his day so he like everyone else protected their creations by keeping them secret. Civilization has lost countless creations and discoveries over the ages for the same reason. Worse still, no one is able to use those inventions to build on. Think we should get rid of or weaken patent rights? Think again.

Infringers complain about inventors not commercializing, but instead choosing to sue and collect damages in court. But inventors and other small entities are unable to commercialize when far larger competitors are using them. Attempting to do so is commercial suicide. Infringers know that well, but ignore the fact to intentionally mislead the public, Congress, the courts and the White House. We are told and are convinced there are influential persons in the White House and members in the committees of Congress who have been commandeered by large multinational infringers and their false accusations and ignore the plight of inventors and other small entities. The rank and file should beware.

Prior to the Supreme Court case eBay v Mercexchange, small entities had a viable chance at commercializing their inventions. If the defendant was found guilty, an injunction was most always issued. Then the inventor small entity could enjoy the exclusive use of his or her invention in commercializing it. Unfortunately, injunctions are often no longer available to small entity inventors because of the eBay decision so we have no fair chance to compete with much larger entities who are now free to use our inventions. Essentially, large infringers now have your gun and all the bullets. Worse yet, inability to commercialize means those same small entities will not be hiring new employees to roll out their products and services. And now those same parties who killed injunctions for small entities and thus blocked any fair chance at commercializing now complain that small entity inventors are not commercializing. They created the problem and now they want to blame small entities for it. What dissembling!

Another common complaint is that patents are being used against small and startup businesses. Seldom does that happen for good reason, the most important being that most startups and small entities do not have the money to pay an award from a patent suit judgement, therefore they are seldom sued. Rather inventors focus on firms of sufficient size and capital to justify enforcement. Also, it doesn’t look good in court or with juries if we are suing parties smaller than us. Other than a few window dressing ‘small entity’ defendants these large multinational infringers dredge up or even control or pay to pose, they do not exist. Then again, why should it matter the size of the infringer? Shouldn’t all theft be discouraged and punished? Property is property.

Some of these false and baseless accusations against patents and inventors are made by what appear to be public interest groups. But if one looks closely you will find they are little more than public relations firms paid by large multinational invention thieves or industry trade groups. Some are academics moonlighting by doing outside consulting work for them. They say and write what they are paid to. Other such groups are funded and controlled by these infringers -just look at the industry trade groups and representatives on their boards. If you lift the rock you’ll find the same large multinational infringers crawling under -hiding behind yet another paid puppet whose job it is to spread lies and distortions. Don’t fall for their Chinese style propaganda.

There’s a reason why the founders of America acknowledged the property rights of inventors in our Constitution as President James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers. It’s about property rights. In America they should not only exist for the wealthy and politically well connected. That would be tacitly un American and repulsive to the American way of thinking. Congress must now course correct and rescue strong patent rights for all patentees -large and small, restoring and completing the vision of America’s founders as embodied in the Constitution.

As to vague or weak patents: if a patent is truly vague, it will be invalidated in court, if infringers contest the question. Infringers never mention that fact. What proponents also fail to disclose is that it costs inventors and other patent holders about as much to assert their patents as it does accused infringers to defend. Plus, in the case of multiple infringer suits defendants are able to share costs so it can actually cost inventors far more in a patent suit than those who would steal their inventions. Inventors and small entities are not so overly flush with cash that they can afford to bring weak or frivolous suits. Capital to them is precious and must be used with great caution. Only fools would knowingly bring weak patent suits. This accusation is absurd and unsupported. The only weak aspects in play here are these baseless accusations by proponents.

What is worse, Congress in being misdirected by the proponents of these unjust bills has been diverted from focusing on the true problems inventors are faced with. One great problem is the inability of inventors and small entities to obtain injunctions once infringement has been found. If we can’t get injunctions, we have no fair chance at commercializing our inventions. How can we when our large competitors are free to use our inventions and have all the capital they will ever need to run us into the ground. Attempting to commercialize without injunctions against our large competitors is commercial suicide and a fool’s errand.

Another issue, one which is seldom publicly discussed, is that many inventors over the last several years have come to distrust the Patent Office. After having been placed into a position where they have had to fight the PTO for years to get their patents to then only have them lost in an administrative proceeding for which inventors question the legality, justice, fairness and impartiality of, inventors develop a strong distaste for and distrust of a government agency which they regard as biased against them. It appears when large invention thieves cannot flim-flam PTO officials, members of Congress, the White House, and the judiciary they bully them with various threats and will even set them up to blackmail. Former chief judge of the CAFC Randal Rader has described the post grant review process at the PTO as ‘death squads killing property rights.’ The recent exposure of the secret SAWS program at the PTO has only deepened the distrust and cemented our conclusions.

Recently PTO commissioners have been appointed who are former employees of or have strong ties to large multinational firms who are repeat infringers and have a reputation in the inventor community to completely disregard the property rights of inventors and infringe without hesitation. These conditions discourage inventors from developing new technologies, or at least motivate them to protect what they can by trade secret and disregard those technologies they cannot so protect. Inventors must now wonder, does the PTO work for the good of the country, or for the good of its senior managers and those large firms they appear unseemly influenced by?

Why America needs a strong patent system

There are many reasons why the patent system benefits America. The first and most important we would argue is it safeguards the most fundamental and sacred right in America -property. Further, as James Madison stated in the Federalist Papers above, it is our mental ‘faculties’ which separates us from one another and America from other countries. Of all the property rights that exist, it was the product of our minds that the founders most cherished as they understood the importance.

Another reason is without strong patent protection inventors and small entities cannot commercialize and therefore will not invent. The present apparent precipitous fall in small entity patent applications will testify to that. Without inventors and small entities America will lose its one any only source for net job gains. As we say, show us a country with weak or ineffective property rights and we’ll show you a country with a weak economy and high unemployment. The above cited study will confirm what should be ‘self evident’, as America’s founders would say.

A strong patent system also safeguards America from economic calamities. As we experienced recently there is a great danger within when companies become so big that the failure of just a few imperil the whole economy. That was the reality of ‘too big to fail’. A strong patent system helps temper such near or probable collapses by segmenting markets between competing interests with the introduction of small innovative competitors. Otherwise, large firms just keep getting bigger and eventually result in ‘too big to fail’ enterprises which imperil America’s economy.

America must save our patent system from those who seek to weaken or destroy it. To truly strengthen the patent system and restore constitutionally recognized and ‘common law’ property rights for all patentees as acknowledged and envisioned by America’s founders for large and small entities, the changes that are crucially needed include:

1.    Restore injunctions for all patentees -large and small, making them mandatory after a judgment of infringement is entered.

Provide that any patent so affected or would have been had this provision been in affect, be reinstated and/or have its term extended accordingly. Reset the clock for statutes limiting enforcement and recovery for infringement for such patents from the date this measure is passed into law.

Depriving inventors exclusive use of their inventions undermines and destroys their ability to commercialize and is contrary to the promise of the Constitution, traditional property rights in America, and the intent of America’s founders.

For example, without an injunction inventors and small entities must compete with far larger firms who have established manufacturing, distribution and marketing channels. Large competitors therefore have long established access to markets and are at least initially able to produce and sell patented inventions for far less than the creators so that the creators are unable to penetrate the markets they created.

Contrary to the claims of infringers, the patent system is not tilted in favor of inventors and in fact never was. To the contrary, it has always been in favor of large infringers who have always had the advantage in that they are far better capitalized and can easily spend inventors into the ground and make a mockery of property rights. That’s why the laws should be modified to promote fairness in the system so that in the end justice prevails, not wealth and influence.

2.    Restore the teaching, suggestion, and motivation basis for determining patentability. Repeal, reverse, recall, vacate or nullify all laws and decisions (America Invents Act, Alice, Mercexchange, Bilski, Octane, sect 101 of the Patent Act, etc) which have significantly eroded long and clearly established rights as recognized in the Constitution and elsewhere by our founders.

Provide that any patent so affected or would have been had this provision been in affect, be reinstated and/or have its term extended accordingly. Reset the clock for statutes limiting enforcement and recovery for infringement for such patents from the date this measure is passed into law.

Uncertainty of what is patentable has profoundly impacted the invention field for inventors and small entities who must obtain and enforce patents to their inventions in order to commercialize and benefit from their creations. For over two centuries patentability in America primarily came down to a) was the invention new, and b) was it non obvious. As the Constitution says, ‘To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries’.

Therefore the principal test for patentability should be 1) does the invention advance science, or 2) is it useful. As a result of recent court decisions the scope of patentable subject matter has been substantially constricted to the point where one patent attorney and litigator has remarked to us in an uncertain tenor, ‘everything can’t be invalid?’. Retired CAFC chief judge Michel has noted regarding recent decisions by the courts, ‘I don’t know that they really understand what they’re doing’.

Part of the problem is that the courts have applied so much analysis and abstraction in determining patentability that in so doing they have trimmed the wick of the candle to where the flame has all but extinguished. What seems to be lacking is an understanding of invention and business. The key and principle determining factor for patentability as in the Constitution should be that an invention is useful. As in a horse race all one need do in business is win -the margin is largely immaterial. Even if one only wins by a nose, they still win and as we all know the winner takes the purse. Rather, some courts have devised an overly complex and restrictive set of rules and tests for determining patentability that ignores this fundamental rule of business and in so doing have veered so far off course that we have become lost in the desert. Congress needs to act to restore this as the primary factor for determining patentability -is the invention useful.

Case and statutory law on patentability were so well established that prior to these recent decisions an inventor pretty well knew before investing much money and time if patents could be obtained and enforced. Without either of these, further development of a proposed invention was useless, unprofitable, and likely to bankrupt the inventor. As a result of recent court decisions such as Alice, there is far greater uncertainty over our ability to both obtain and enforce our patents. Without the assurances of viable and strong patent protection, we simply cannot afford to invent, or we become little more than free R&D for much larger competitors.

3.    Eliminate all administrative post issue reviews of patents, except for those requested by applicant or patent holder.

Provide that any patent so affected or would have been had this provision been in affect, be reinstated and/or have its term extended accordingly. Reset the clock for statutes limiting enforcement and recovery for infringement for such patents from the date this measure is passed into law.

Determining patent eligibility and validity, especially within the framework of ongoing litigation, requires not only a thorough understanding of the law, but most of all complete impartiality. That is why we have the courts and juries as further protection against political intrigues like Joan of Arc.

The PTO it was recently disclosed, has a secret program to delay and block the issuance of select applications.

http://www.cnet.com/news/secret-patent-review-system-raises-innovation-concerns/
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/the-u-s-government-has-a-secret-system-for-104249688314.html

PTO management has proven they are not impartial arbiters. Any such proceeding outside of the courts and juries denies inventors due process.

Post issue reviews of issued patents place the PTO in a compromised position. They must by the nature of ongoing litigation be prejudiced from certifying patents in an effort to avoid publicity for the office. They have a conflict of interest. This is clear upon reading public statements by PTO management over the last several years. They have been highly sensitive to criticism by infringers and those within their influence. In contrast, federal judges are appointed for life and are therefore less susceptible to the whims of political winds and election influence pedaling. Plus, jury tampering is a felony punishable by imprisonment. Property rights should be a matter of law -not politics and lobbying as they are now.

One inventor noted how in a past PTO public meeting with inventors and attorneys around 2002, a remark by a group director as to how the PTO was working closely with the Million Dollar Roundtable on matters of patent prosecution. But they are an industry trade group for large insurance and financial services firms -firms who are far more likely to be defendants in patent suits than patent holders. Why should the PTO be working closely with any such industry group? That the PTO would be doing so strikes inventors as highly questionable and leads us to question the office’s impartiality.

One huge problem for inventors and other small entities is that post issue administrative reviews (PGR, IPR, etc) can be very expensive -up to $500,000. Few inventors and small entities have that kind of cash so they are often defenseless against these proceedings. When we have to fight the PTO to keep our patents we lose and go out of business.

A large percentage of the time inventors use contingent fee attorneys to enforce their patents. Doing so is apt to trigger post issue reviews. But ordinarily contingent representation only extends to court and does not include PTO administrative reviews. Therefore, PTO post issue reviews deprive inventors of fair means of defending their patent rights and allows infringers, many of whom are very well capitalized and can easily afford a court proceeding -far more so than inventors, to benefit most in that there inventors are largely defenseless. What these proceedings do is shift nearly all the financial burden of enforcement unfairly to inventors who are least able to afford it.  Inventors will tell you all the fluff about reducing litigation had nothing to do with the motivation of administrative review. It all came down to putting inventors in a defenseless position so large infringers could easily rob and crush their small competitors. That is the result of AIA and similar changes to patent law.

For example, one inventor had to endure and survive a 15 year long struggle at the PTO to obtain a patent only to have his then issued patent put in such a PTO review and then lose it because of a lack of funding to adequately defend.  That should never happen in America.

Though if an applicant or patent holder wishes to waive their right to trial by jury in a patent case or any other they certainly have that right, it is no more just or lawful to deny them that fundamental and “unalienable” right to trial by jury in a patent dispute than it would be in any other controversy.

4.    Ensure that each patent issued has an effective term of at least 17 years by extension, including any issued prior to the date of passage of this provision.

Provide that any patent so affected or would have been had this provision been in affect, be reinstated and/or have its term extended accordingly. Reset the clock for statutes limiting enforcement and recovery for infringement for such patents from the date this measure is passed into law.

Since the passage of the GAAT treaty, inventors contend the average pendancy for patents has sharply risen, certainly for inventors and other small entities. But then, because of the above noted problems with management of the PTO database we are unable to confirm. Because of the way the PTO has been calculating patent term adjustments, effective patent term has reduced well bellow the 17 year term which was guaranteed in the American Inventors Protection Act.

One inventor had a patent issue after an extended pendency period of over 13 years. Yet the patent term as computed by the PTO was less than 4 years. As a result patents will issue with only minimal remaining effective patent term -well short of the intended 17 year minimum and some will have effectively no patent term due to delays at the PTO. The present law provides no incentive for the PTO to issue patents timely as the delays they cause are lost to the inventor. Tying expiration to the filing date of the application to issue will prompt the PTO to stop their foot dragging and allow inventors to obtain their patents on a far more timely basis so they have a fair chance at obtaining funding and commercializing. As it now stands by the time the PTO gets around to issuing our patents we have little or no term left and are often forced out of business.

5.    Restore the law so that settlements in the course of litigation are not considered in damages as had been the law for over 100 years.

Provide that any patent so affected or would have been had this provision been in affect, be reinstated and/or have its term extended accordingly. Reset the clock for statutes limiting enforcement and recovery for infringement for such patents from the date this measure is passed into law.

Inventors have to routinely fight for years to get their patents. Because of that and because they are chronically under funded they often prefer to settle in litigation at least initially when they have multiple infingers as they cannot risk losing their case and thereby go bankrupt. These are clearly settlements under duress by inventors and are not arms length negotiations which could plausibly be taken as fair market value. But when the courts consider these in suit settlements for the purpose of determining reasonable royalty in subsequent actions it places inventors in a position where in order to mitigate their risk of bankruptcy should they lose they can substantially affect the value of their invention long term. Such a legal practice places the inventor in an all or nothing position which they often are unable to navigate around. By the courts using these in suit settlements to determine subsequent royalty it substantially deprives inventors of the full or even fair market value of their inventions. Such a practice does not encourage inventors or their inventions and in fact unfairly deprives them of just compensation for their inventions.

6.    Provide that patent holders may bring suit in any venue where their patents are infringed and where the infringer has a meaningful connection or presence.

Provide that any patent so affected or would have been had this provision been in affect, be reinstated and/or have its term extended accordingly. Reset the clock for statutes limiting enforcement and recovery for infringement for such patents from the date this measure is passed into law.

As had been the case in American law since its formation, whenever a property right was trespassed, the owner had the right to sue in any venue where he/she was injured. But because of recent changes in patent law inventors in many cases now have to sue infringers in the infringer’s home venue. The recently proposed venue act would only make matters worse for inventors and small entities.

In some regions of the country certain industries or large corporations are heavily entrenched and command an unfair advantage as the jury pool is heavily weighted in their favor, such as with their employees and relatives of. In those districts large multinationals also can assert undue influence on the election or appointment of judges to the bench. Requiring inventors and other small entities to sue infringers in their home turfs can give infringers a clear advantage such as a heightened threat of summary judgement and substantial delays -denying inventors their day in court. If infringers do not want to be sued in a given venue, then they shouldn’t infringe and have a meaningful connection or presence there. To deny recourse to inventors in any reasonable venue, such as where infringed, is a denial of fundamental rights. What could be more un American?

7.    Undo expedited processing, or substantially reduce or waive the fees for small entities (defined by the Small Business Administration).

Inventors believe the expedited processing initiated by AIA has created a situation where large applicants who are well funded are now able to pay extra fees and in essence cut in line in front of small applicants and force them to the back of the line. The applications of inventors now languish and collect dust while large firm applications move swiftly through the office. But prompt review of our applications by the PTO is critical to inventors and other small entities as noted in a recent paper by faculty of Harvard and New York Universities…

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2704028
‘Our findings suggest that the benefits of speeding up reviews can be immediate and substantial, particularly for small inventors whom the patent system is intended to protect.’

Again, we are unable to verify the extent of the delays because of the PTO’s above noted database issues.

8.    Criminal and punitive penalties for owners and managers of repeat infringers, or in the case of continued infringement once infringement is found.

9.    Full faith and credit in any previous action is to be given any patent for which a federal court has rendered a decision of validity.

Provide that any patent so affected or would have been had this provision been in affect, be reinstated and/or have its term extended accordingly. Reset the clock for statutes limiting enforcement and recovery for infringement for such patents from the date this measure is passed into law.

Requiring inventors to serially and perpetually defend their patents is a miscarriage of justice and only weakens their ability to benefit from their inventions. How is that not double jeopardy? This measure will help conserve limited judicial resources.

10.    Mandatory triple damages and attorney fees if a large entity infringes a small entity patent after a judgment of infringement is entered.

Provide that any patent so affected or would have been had this provision been in affect, be reinstated and/or have its term extended accordingly. Reset the clock for statutes limiting enforcement and recovery for infringement for such patents from the date this measure is passed into law.

11.    Streamlined, expedited and low cost civil procedure for cases below a specified damages mark such as $10 million…for example, one year to trial, immediate obviousness invalidity hearing, no post issue administrative review (IPR or PGR, etc) allowed, no Summary Judgments allowed, no Markman hearing and limited discovery (no depositions like in criminal cases).

Provide that any patent so affected or would have been had this provision been in affect, be reinstated and/or have its term extended accordingly. Reset the clock for statutes limiting enforcement and recovery for infringement for such patents from the date this measure is passed into law.

12.    Require that the PTO Director have long standing strong ties with and the confidence of inventors and other small entities, and that at least half the members of the PTO’s Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC) be small entities or represent primarily small entities.

Doing so will help restore confidence of inventors in the PTO which has been substantially eroded over the last several years as a result of what inventors believe to be unreasonable and discriminatory practices by the PTO against them. These changes will help further assure continued strong patent protection for all patentees -large and small. For example, the current Director has no meaningful ties with inventors or small entities and only 1 of the present 12 members of PPAC are inventors, small entities not controlled by large, or primarily represent small inventors. This may in part explain why the number of applications filed by and patents issued to inventors and other small entities has steadily declined over the past several years. Many inventors now believe the patent office and the patent system overall now unfairly serve large firms more than them. Unless that changes, inventor applications and their continued critical contribution to the American economy will continue to dwindle and the economy and job creation will suffer as a result.

13.    Permanently end fee diversion from the PTO into other branches of government.

Doing so will end double taxation and provide the PTO with more resources to more quickly and confidently examine and issue patents which will rapidly stimulate the economy. Thomas Jefferson was surprised at the affect of the patent system, that it was ‘beyond my conception’. But unless this measure is instituted sunstantially with our other measures it will not have that affect.

14.    Mandate that the PTO will keep a database with all relevant data regarding filed and issued patents (entity size, date filed (+issd), application type, date appealed/decided, etc.) and make it publicly available on its web site for all parties to query and extract data.

The problem now is that while inventors expect the system has gradually decayed so that fewer of their patents are issuing and pendency has substantially increased, we are unable to confirm as the database on the PTO web site where we could extract this information is poorly documented and administered so that we are unable to do so and we question if even they can. Transparency is needed. How can Congress or anyone properly provide oversight of the PTO when no one knows what the current state of these things is?

15.    Delay any publication of applications until at least a patent issues from them, or let any issued patent suffice.

Inventors note that the patent is a contract between the federal government and the inventor. We disclose in return for a patent. But especially in these times issuance is far from certain. Meanwhile, your application is published and your large competitors are tipped off on the line you are working on and can then apply far more resources to your invention and possibly as a result beat you to a fully functional version. This is of critical importance in this era of first to file. In this way the patent system provides large infringers free r&d and discourages inventors from filing.

16.    Establish regional patent trial courts with subject matter juris over district courts, or require district court judges to take a minimal amount of CLE courses per year (1 day, etc) before they can take a patent case.

17.    Create a loan fund for small entity ($15M annual sales or less) patent holders for suits against non small entities funded by defendants at 1% of awarded damages or settlements.

For more information please visit us at https://aminventorsforjustice.wordpress.com/
or, contact us at aifj@mail.com