[prbuckley]

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

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a21181/greatest-a...

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...

[PatentTroll]

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.

[ScottBurson]

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.