Patents R Us: Information and Services for Inventors and Patent Owners
Promoting Real Patent Reform
With the underfunded and understaffed United States Patent Office facing a mammoth backlog of patent applications, some changes for the patent system are clearly in order. But the wrong kinds of changes could cause more harm than good, especially if inventors find their patent rights eroded in the process. And many individuals and groups in the intellectual property community feel that the Patent Reform Act of 2009 (S. 515 and H.R. 1280) is the wrong kind of reform.
Alexander Poltorak founded American Innovators for Patent Reform (AIPR) in 2007 in response to the Patent Reform Act of 2007 which failed to be enacted into law. AIPR is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting for the right kind of patent reform and speaking out against elements of the Patent Reform Act of 2009 that would have a chilling effect on inventors and innovation. Many of the proposed changes to the patent system would make it more difficult for individual inventors, small businesses, and smaller universities and research institutions to file patent applications. The proposed legislation would also make it more difficult to defend patents once they issued. AIPR is opposed to several elements of the House and Senate bills that would:
-
Place limitations on venue – where patent owners are allowed to file suit against infringers
-
Redefine prior art in a way that would make it more difficult to obtain a patent
-
Change the US patent system from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file regime
-
Enable post-grant opposition that would further weaken issued patents
-
Apportion damages in patent cases according to whether or not the patent owner uses the patent to produce products or services
Besides AIPR, many other organizations and individuals have expressed opposition to the Patent Reform Act of 2009. They run the spectrum from labor unions and the AFL-CIO to high-tech companies united under The Innovative Alliance; from big business to big biotech and pharmaceutical companies (represented by BIO and PhRMA, respectively) to individual inventors. There’s also the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, which represents large manufacturers and industrial businesses such as 3M, GE, PepsiCo and Exxon-Mobil.
Groups that usually find themselves on opposite sides of the fence on many issues are united in opposing the patent reform bills currently before Congress – and AIPR’s goal is to unite people from different backgrounds and interest groups in the common cause of preserving inventors’ rights and strengthening patent protection through meaningful patent reform.
In addition to Alex Poltorak, the AIPR Board of Directors includes Lawrence Udell, Executive Director at Intellectual Property International, Ltd.; Ron Reardon, Vice President of the National Association of Patent Practitioners and President of United Inventors Association; Pat Choate, noted speaker and author, and Director of the Manufacturing Policy Project; and Mike Drummond, Editor of Inventors Digest.
Membership is open to inventors, researchers, engineers, attorneys, law firms, businesses, patent agents and patent attorneys, licensing executives, tech transfer managers, university professors and authors – anyone with a stake in preserving and improving the patent system is invited to join AIPR.