‘U.S. patent system in decline’

‘http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/04/26/top-3-reasons-u-s-patent-system-decline/id=82571/

‘U.S. patent system in decline’

That’s such an understatement we are nearly speechless.

First, take a look at the Board for the Chamber…

https://www.uschamber.com/about/board-directors

How many inventors do you see?…Zero.

How many small businesses do you see?…Zero.

They say they represent ‘the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes‘. Sure they do, rrrright.

The American patent system is now a sport of kings. For us it is also a sport of thieves. We view the Chamber as essentially a lobbyist organization for some of America’s and the world’s largest infringers (and exporters of American jobs or importers of foreign workers who displace Americans). Sure, for them the American patent system may well be the world’s best. It is great at helping them rob and crush their small competitors. But that’s disastrous for inventors and other inventive small American businesses. We need a patent system that strengthens and stabilizes property rights, not one that sells them to the highest bidder.

Rather, a far better gauge as to the health of our patent system is: does it encourage inventors?

Our answer is simple and emphatic -HELL NO! Here’s why.

As in our earlier study using data from the PTO web site, the small entity share of issued patents and filed applications has fallen to only about 1/10th of their historical shares, if not less and still falling. Obviously, the patent system is NOT encouraging inventors. It is chasing them away.

Further, our chances of enforcing any patents we may get after years of fighting the patent office for them is minuscule -about 3%, according to another study.

https://aminventorsforjustice.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/inventors-only-succeed-about-3-of-the-time/

Worsening the erosion of property rights is that the courts have artificially capped our awards (see p9 2017 PWC Patent Litigation Study). There is no data to support market based factors so we can only conclude these reductions are not based on fact, but rather on a change in policy. They have been artificially capped. But the reality of damages is far worse than the PWC study suggests. Their study only looks at pre appeal damages. Those awards rarely matter. If we lose on appeal, or have our awarded damages gutted we get nothing, so the PWC study in this respect is largely immaterial.

In fact, for about the last 10 years even if inventors can get a large award at the district level, we have little chance of getting that award upheld on appeal. As above, we only prevail about 3% of the time in the end -virtually never for any award over $5M, so even a large award from the district court does us no good…we lose it on appeal and NEVER collect! So is the CAFC saying it’s OK for our infringers to make millions or even billions on our inventions, but not for us? Huh??? That’s as ridiculous as SCOTUS saying in Alice they will not uphold patents for fundamental or building block inventions. So what, they don’t want us to invent anything really important…or just don’t want to uphold our patents for anything large corporations want to steal? That’s another reason why we need the right of injunctions because we cannot depend on the courts to equitably uphold our property rights, if at all. The crumbs some courts such as SCOTUS and CAFC want to give us, only prolong our eventual ruin. They will not sustain OUR successful commercialization of our inventions -only their commercialization by others such as large multinational infringers (thieves). That’s how large thieves most always prevail in the end. Why are these courts so soft on crime? WHY?!

But if you cut the top off of a tree, the tree dies. THAT, is what is happening to America’s inventors.

Because of the above inventors are no longer practically able to obtain and enforce patents to our inventions. As in the above PWC study patent suits have been declining overall. But things are far worse. Their study does not reflect that we are now permitted to only name one defendant per case, whereas before we could and would routinely include up to tens of infringers in one case -sometimes over 100. Therefore the number of cases filed is no longer material. It is the number of DEFENDANTS named that matters. Likely for us, that has dropped in proportion to the number of our patents that have issued, or by at least 90% -but it may be far worse We are aware of no study that reports that.

These are some of the causes that explain why the small entity shares of issued patents and filed applications have so plummeted. In general, patents for us are now far too hard, expensive and slow to get, keep and enforce.  For us, the patent system is now a sport of thieves. Unless changes are made to restore the patent system the American inventor will continue to dissipate until they completely disappear. This is a matter of grave importance to America’s economic stability and job creation. The American inventor is becoming extinct.

After all, the entire purpose of the patent system is to encourage inventors, not large multinational infringers as the present system does. Inventors have been ‘reformed’ to death by them and their paid lobbyists who have commandeered some courts, the Patent Office, the former White House and some in Congress -if not infiltrated. We can only conclude SCOTUS hates us and property rights…except possibly those of our large infringers. We’re not so sure about the CAFC either, at least because they are artificially limiting our damages. The real world market needs to set the price of our inventions, not the courts. Give us our injunctions back. Respect our rights. The courts must either be for property, or they will be against America.

What inventors critically need is for Congress to restore the patent system. We have drafted a set of proposed measures which we are completely convinced will do just that.

https://aminventorsforjustice.wordpress.com/proposedmeasures/

For our position and the changes we advocate (the rest of the truth) to restore the patent system, or to join our effort, please visit us at https://aminventorsforjustice.wordpress.com/category/our-position/
or, contact us at aifj@mail.com