Inventors Project
Obama Holdovers Driving Trump Patent Policy
Jeff Cargerman May 19, 2017 0 Uncategorized
In his first speech to Congress, President Donald J. Trump finished strong, talking about how inventors can make the American economy great again. You might expect that from a branding pioneer. His billions are built on intellectual property; the Trump Organization owns hundreds of trademarks around the world.
In fact, it's a family legacy: his uncle John G. Trump's patented radar and cancer tumor laser inventions won recognition from Presidents Truman and Reagan. His son, Donald J. Trump Jr., has been a patent licensing investor and executive. Ivanka Trump has her own trademarks worldwide.
Even the Republican platform specifically states patents are private property – rights inventors rely upon to create jobs and bring new ideas to market. So, you might think a Trump White House would be as pro-patent as Trump Tower. But it's not.
Read full article at Real Clear Politics.
Which IP Issues Ducked The Radar In 2015?
Jeff Cargerman December 23, 2015 0 Uncategorized
Law360 looks at what issues slid under the radar this year. Richard Baker, New England Intellectual Property LLC, writes:
"The most underreported IP development in 2015 is Capitol Hill's attitude reversal regarding patent rights. For half a decade, infringers dominated intellectual property debate, vilifying patent owners and keeping inventors from telling their side. In 2015, things changed when inventor Paul Morinville spent retirement funds to travel to Washington for door­to­door meetings with House and Senate staffers. He demonstrated how patent reform hurt inventors and innovation. Morinville pointed to a crash in secondary patent sales as the beginning of the end of American innovation, leaving a bleak technology future. As his effort progressed, other inventors joined him, in Washington and in the press, publishing articles on the huge loss of patent values due to AIA legislation. As 2015 draws to an end, support for further patent reform has waned as politicians realize the role patents play in creating a strong economy and that the AIA may have gone too far."
The importance of strong intellectual property cannot be overstated. As we look to 2016, any potential legislation in the coming year out of Washington D.C. must not only strengthen patents, but not undermine any intellectual property that small inventors and innovators rely on to defend their inventions.
A toxic concoction of myth, media and money is killing the patent system
Jeff Cargerman September 30, 2015 0 Uncategorized
A recent article by Paul Morinville and Gene Quinn, published on IPWatchdog
In the past decade, the patent system has been turned on its head. Inventors are now villainized as cartoon characters called patent trolls simply because they assert their hard-earned patent rights against corporations who steal their inventions. These infringing corporations have cleverly cultivated the myth that all patent owners are patent trolls by engaging high-powered lobbyists and public relations firms to loudly attack inventors. This toxic concoction of myth, media and money has gagged opposing voices effectively creating political cover for the government to make rapid and fundamental changes to patent law that skew the field toward big corporations at the expense of inventors and small innovation companies, including those high tech start-ups that are responsible for creating high paying jobs.
The Obama Administration, the courts and Congress have destabilized the patent system for the least able to withstand instability – inventors and small innovation companies. A quagmire of confusing and contradictory law has rendered tens of thousands of legally and rightfully granted patents to become unenforceable. These changes are certainly riding the system of those who abuse the litigation process for profit, but not without slaughtering an entire generation of inventors and innovative companies along with them.
To read the rest of Paul and Gene's article on what's damaging the patent system, click here.
How a Washington Breakfast Influenced Conservative Votes on Patent Reform
The life's blood of politics is money. For an incumbent politician the more money they have the easier a path to reelection, which seems to be the primary focus of most Members of Congress. Raising money is an absolute job requirement, at least if you want to stay as an incumbent politician.
While many a commentator has lamented the chase for money by politicians, one less often told story is how senior Members of Congress are able to influence more junior Members, those who are in truly swing districts, and those Member who are perennial targets from the opposing party.
Here is a story of how $1,000 a plate Washington breakfast influenced the votes of several Conservative Members of Congress who serve on the House Judiciary, including Representative Steve King (IA-04), allowing Committee passage of H.R.9, the innovation killing Innovation Act.
For the Full article, click here.
Carly Fiorina on Patent Reform in Congress
Jeff Cargerman August 18, 2015 0 Uncategorized
Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett Packard CEO, and now in the midst of challenging for the Republican Presidential nomination, spoke at the Iowa State Fair this week, specifically touching on the patent reform bill in Congress right now. She said the bill would harm the small innovator and she has lobbied against the bill for many months.
News of the Week – August 13th
The U.S. economy is plodding along amid turbulence around the globe, a sign of its relative strength despite mounting questions about its long-term vitality (Wall Street Journal).
The American economy delivered pretty much what was expected last month in terms of hiring, giving the Federal Reserve one more piece of evidence that conditions are strong enough to support an increase in the interest rate (New York Times).
The path to prosperity requires sound patent policy, not more patent reform
Iowa State Senator Jeff Danielson recently wrote a piece on patents:
"Sound patent policy, which encourages the nexus between risk and ideas (especially for small entrepreneurs), makes invention profitable. In Iowa, many of our best ideas begin small and grow allowing us the opportunity to dream and then make those dreams a reality. The U.S. patent system enables that dream by protecting the market an invention creates long enough for the inventor to gain a toehold against competition, and by creating a property right capable of attracting critical investment to bring the invention to market and grow the business."
Read the full article at IPWatchDog.
News of the Week – July 30th
Jeff Cargerman July 30, 2015 0 News of the Week, Uncategorized
The Innovation Act poses a threat to this drug discovery process. The bill creates a host of new administrative hassles for those defending their patents in court. New legal expenses and time burdens could deter researchers from pouring funds into drug development because the patents that make such development financially viable would be harder to enforce (NewsWeek).
The Federal Reserve is moving toward raising interest rates from record lows — just not likely yet. On Wednesday, when it ends its latest policy meeting, Fed officials will issue a statement that will be parsed for clues to just when the first rate increase since 2006 might occur (Associated Press).
Inventors working on a fixed budget should consider more affordable options. The USPTO offers an excellent web tutorial on how to conduct a preliminary U.S. patent search (Entrepreneur).
Unintended Consequences?
Jeff Cargerman July 24, 2015 0 Uncategorized
Anyone who has observed the current evolution of patent "reform" could not help but observe that the effort has been very one-sided. The proof is that inventors, the very group the American Patent System was created for, have been shut out of hearings. In the Senate, The PATENT Act got through the markup without a single inventor being allowed into a single hearing. For the House's Innovation Act, only one inventor was allowed into a single hearing.
When such a bias exists, the possibility of unintended outcomes increases. An example of what can result is a shocking piece of text I recently found hidden within H.R.9:
"Section 273 of title 35, United States Code, is amended by striking subsection (f)."
The text provides no further explanation, giving the impression that this is unimportant. However, this sentence removes the penalty to a guilty patent infringer who has asserted false claims regarding prior use in a patent infringement case.* This appears to be a blatant attempt to remove the disincentive to the stealing of another's legitimate intellectual property.
Is the purpose of H.R.9 to further enable the theft of legitimate intellectual property? That certainly is not what its proponents claim. Yet the language above does nothing else. Are there other sentences like this hidden in H.R.9? How did this get into H.R.9? Why is this also in the Senate's PATENT Act?
The potential unintended consequences of this legislation are catastrophic to vital American innovation. The Innovation Act, H.R.9 and The PATENT Act, S. 1137, should be dropped and a truly balanced effort to handle any actual problems within the critically important American Patent System should be undertaken.
*Section 273 is "Defense to infringement based on prior commercial use."
Subsection (f) is "Unreasonable Assertion of Defense— If the defense under this section is pleaded by a person who is found to infringe the patent and who subsequently fails to demonstrate a reasonable basis for asserting the defense, the court shall find the case exceptional for the purpose of awarding attorney fees under section 285."
The sentence above wherein subsection (f) is striken is found on page 7, lines 3-5 of the Managers Amendment version of H.R.9.
Debunking Lex Machina Patent Data
The anti-inventor lobby conducted a panel discussion on Monday July 20 in support of H.R.9. The crux of this panel was to show that patent litigation has increased thus it is urgent for Congress to pass H.R.9 now. Unfortunately, the data they cite does not support their conclusion.
The ant-inventor lobby's misleading invitation to the panel discussion cited in a "study" by Lex Machina:
"Rep. Zoe Lofgren is hosting a broad coalition of retailers, technology companies, home builders, manufacturers, food industry, and startups to discuss how H.R. 9 puts an end to malicious and unfair litigation practices, while preserving strong patent rights for companies that bring real innovation to our economy.
Patent trolls are paper companies that don't invest in R&D, don't manufacture goods, don't provide services and don't sell products, but exist merely to extort money from real businesses by threatening expensive litigation over dubious and fraudulent patent claims.
With a recent study showing that more patent lawsuits were filed in the first 6 months of 2015 than ever before, and that 68% of these suits were brought by patent trolls, it is more important than ever that Congress act quickly to stop patent trolls before more small businesses are bankrupted, or more R&D funds are wasted."
It is clear the anti-inventor lobby's strategy is to mislead Congress to pass legislation that eliminates "patent rights for companies that bring real innovation to our economy".
The word "study" implies factual analysis; however, Lex Machina simply provided bare data and graphs with no analysis. Lex Machina's data is certainly important to informing the patent reform discussion so that Congress comes to a reasoned and fair conclusion. But data is nothing but data, and many questions must be asked and answered to develop actionable information in the form of a "study".
What is a patent troll? Lex Machina data says nothing. The Google lobby cynically defines a patent troll as pretty much anyone who asserts a patent, which not only includes independent inventors, but also investors who invested into a company that failed due to massive theft of patent rights by large companies like Google.
Who are the so-called patent trolls? Lex Machina data does not inform us. The ten-year war on inventors has made it very difficult for an inventor to defend patent rights, so many sell patent rights to someone who can. In most cases, these "paper companies" represent the interests of inventors whose patented inventions have been stolen by large corporations.
Are the defendants in fact "small businesses"? The anti-inventor lobby says they are, however the Lex Machina data is silent. Plaintiffs know that even a small defendant can file an IPR created under the America Invents Act, which is invalidating three quarters of the patents it sees. The cost of a patent suit is measured in the millions of dollars and nobody files a lawsuit if they cannot get at least the cost of the suit returned. Since a license represents only a small percentage of the total sales revenue of an infringing product, it is unlikely these cases are against small companies. The stronger argument is the suits are against large companies.
Are the lawsuits "dubious and fraudulent"? Lex Machina says nothing about merits. However, the anti-inventor lobby tells us the lawsuits are "dubious and fraudulent". Today, attorney fees are shifted to the plaintiff for frivolous cases at a high rate. If someone files a frivolous suit, they subject themselves to millions of dollars of risk in fee reversal. A more logical conclusion is these lawsuits are meritorious.
The Lex Machina data shows that plaintiff count is down in relation to the number of lawsuits. In other words, there are more infringers per patent. A better guess at the meaning of Lex Machina's data is that patent rights are no longer respected and thus are stolen by more companies.
If a real study were performed, the Lex Machina data is much more likely to show that theft of patents by large corporations has risen dramatically, and once stolen, inventors have no options but the courts to defend patent rights. It is a measure of corporate theft of patented property from inventors who are defending their property rights – not, as the anti-inventor lobby would have us believe, of frivolous lawsuits by a cartoon character.
RT @USPolicyNews: "The unintended consequences of the legislation has resulted in an absurdly high "kill rate" of patents." #patentsmatter…
RT @InnovationAlli: Join Sen. @maziehirono, @USPTO Dir. Iancu, @IowaStateU Pres. Dr. Wintersteen, @Qualcomm's Alex Rogers and @invent_toget…
© Inventors Project 2021