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Comment by prbuckley | Hacker News Reader

As a small business owner inventor, and patent owner I think what the parent is talking about is the PTAB and the Inter Partes Review (IPR) process that is very expensive for a patent owner to defend against and. Lee is seen as someone who could place more limits on IPR's but has not. This directly benefits large companies at the expense of small patent holders.

For example, say you as a small time inventor have a valid patent on some great new widget. Big company X starts selling the widget you invented, you approach them and ask if they would license your patent, Big company X can afford to keep filing IPR's against your patent and it will cost you ~$200,000 each time. Big company X can milk you dry and draw things out for years so it becomes much more difficult as a small business to defend and license your patent. Lee seems to have really helped large tech companies at the expense of small inventors.

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You are wrong. IPRs are much quicker and less expensive that district court litigation, which is what it replaces. If you're afraid of Big. Co.'s deep pockets, they're much scarier in district court! The PTAB is designed to be more efficient, quicker, and cheaper than district court, and it is by a long shot. And no, they can't file serial IPRs for the most part, there is strong estoppel that comes with an IPR proceeding to prevent just that very thing from happening. So if your patent is valid, then in less than a year and about $200k you can have that sucker gold plated and anointed by the PTAB and then enforce it to your hearts delight! Much better than several million $ and at least 2-3 years for a district court if you ask me. And if your patent is garbage, well you'll find that out quicker too and free up resources to go do something else.

Here are some articles explaining how IPR's hurt small business's and sole inventors...

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2016/06/26/cuozzo-ipr-death-americ...

and one in particular that explains how Lee's management of USPTO policy has hurt small business patent owners...

"The AIA also allows the Director discretion to stop harassment of patent owners, but Lee has never once used that power despite the fact that at least several patent owners have had seven or eight inter partes review challenges filed against the same patent. The PTAB itself has finally started to consider harassment as grounds to refuse to institute. So bad and lopsided are the PTAB proceedings, that the Federal Circuit has found PTAB decisions to be arbitrary and capricious, and with respect to covered business method (CBM) challenges, the Federal Circuit has slammed the PTAB for creating its own definition and standard while ignoring the statute and regulations. So if Lee was referring to the PTAB and post grant challenges the most honest assessment is that the Office has utterly and completely failed patent owners and the patent system."

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/02/02/michelle-lees-patent-qu...

Interesting to read the argument of the side we don't usually hear from around here.

I guess we can hope that an entrepreneur starting a technology company would be equally concerned with both possibilities: getting sued unfairly vs. being unable to protect their own inventions. Around Silicon Valley, I think the former has been the greater concern, but I guess the pendulum is now swinging the other way.

Of course, ideally we would minimize the likelihood of both of those problems. But that seems to be very difficult.

The pop mechanics article is clearly written by a non-lawyer and retells the story of a guy who got a patent invalidated at the ptab. How does that support the conclusion that the ptab is bad for small businesses? That's like saying county court is bad for drivers because I got a speeding ticket. First you have to establish that the court/ptab got it wrong, and then prove that they get it disproportionately wrong for a certain category of people - small business. I just don't see that proved up in the article. And Gene Quinn is rabidly anti-ptab so I can't really rely on him to be impartial.

Edit: and the guy complains about spending $100k in defense... lol, that number would have been 10-30x higher for a district court proceeding to get to the same conclusion. And it would have taken years.

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