Posts Tagged: "independent inventor"

The ‘Inventorpreneur’, America’s Economic Savior

As we start to approach the apex of the COVID-19 pandemic, the next hurdle will be solving the economic crisis. Getting people back to work will be the next job for America’s leaders. America’s small businesses have always been the backbone of the country’s economy, providing 64.9% of net new jobs. Main Street shops and restaurants play a very important part in providing paychecks. However, even more important are America’s inventors. The inventor/entrepreneur (“Inventorpreneur”) creates the technologies and jobs that stay in America and don’t move overseas to places like China. They usually do this by patenting their inventions and creating new companies. Intellectual property (IP) produces high paying jobs not only for scientists and engineers, but also for marketing and manufacturing managers, technicians, salespeople, artists, and others.

New USPTO Council Aims to Strengthen U.S. Innovation By Increasing Participation of Underrepresented Groups

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced yesterday a major initiative to “build a more diverse and inclusive innovation ecosystem by encouraging participation demographically, geographically, and economically.” Dubbed the National Council for Expanding American Innovation (NCEAI), the project includes 29 representatives from industry, academia, and government, and was conceived based on recommendations made in the USPTO’s 2018 SUCCESS Act study and congressional report transmitted to Congress in December 2019.

A Conversation with Andrei Iancu on the Role of Innovation and the USPTO in Combating COVID-19

I recently had the opportunity to conduct an interview with Andrei Iancu, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, via WebEx. The focus of our conversation was the COVID-19 pandemic: USPTO efforts to work with stakeholders, the role of intellectual property in finding cures and treatments, and general thoughts relating to what the Office is observing. Our conversation also veered into Bayh-Dole and the the letter just sent by three-dozen state Attorneys General asking the federal government to use march-in rights against Remdesivir.

US Inventor Amicus in New Vision Gaming: ‘October Effect,’ Subjective APJ Evaluations Support Due Process Argument Against PTAB

On August 3, inventor advocacy group US Inventor filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in support of a due process argument raised in an appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) by New Vision Gaming & Development. US Inventor’s brief raises two major points in support of New Vision’s contention that the financial incentive structure for administrative patent judges (APJs) destroys due process at the PTAB. First, the brief details data that proves the existence of an “October Effect,” which leads to inflated rates of petitioner-friendly PTAB trial institutions in response to the APJ performance review cycle at the USPTO. Second, the brief argues that APJ performance review criteria are inherently subjective in a way that incentivizes APJs to make pro-petitioner decisions to please supervisors who have budgetary responsibilities. Taken together, US Inventor contends that these factors would lead a reasonable person to question “whether the PTAB invalidates patents so frequently because its constituent APJs try to please their budget-minded bosses through revenue-enhancing decision making.”

USPTO Report Cites Incremental Growth in the Number of Women Inventor-Patentees

This month, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released a report titled “Progress and Potential: 2020 update on U.S. women inventor- patentees” (the Report). The Report updated a study published last year that outlined trends in women inventors named on U.S. patents from 1976 to 2016. These reports are a result of the Study of Underrepresented Classes Chasing Engineering and Science Success (SUCCESS) Act of 2018, which directed the USPTO to study and report to Congress on the number of patents applied for and obtained: (1) by women, minorities, and veterans; and (2) by small businesses owned by women, minorities, and veterans. As evidenced by the USPTO reports, women are under-represented as inventors of record on USPTO patents, which is least partially due to a general lack of funding available to women inventors.