When Section 32 of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act became law in fall 2011, the USPTO began working with intellectual property law associations across the country to establish pro bono programs designed to assist financially under-resourced independent inventors and small businesses secure patent protection for their inventions. Minnesota was the first state to establish a program, and now joins the growing list of programs expanding to cover nearby states. The efforts of those programs, in conjunction with the USPTO, has been astounding: within the past ten months, the number of states now having access to a patent pro bono program has more than doubled.