Chinese companies use PTAB to invalidate domestic firms

Inventors participating in the group's Decade of Stolen Dreams rally - many whose lives and businesses "have been unjustly destroyed by PTAB rulings" according to US Inventor, will gather along with supporters and make their voices heard in front of USPTO regional offices in Alexandria, VA, Dallas, TX, Denver, CO, Detroit, MI, and San Jose, CA, as well as from the main Vermont office of Senator Patrick Leahy, the bill's principal sponsor. (For rally times, addresses, and additional information please seehttp://usinventor.org/rally-media)

"The PTAB was sold to Congress as an easier and faster but fair alternative to litigation in district court for patent disputes," says US Inventor Policy Director Josh Malone. "However, what it became instead was a powerful tool that a large infringer could use to challenge the validity of any small inventor's patent in order to use the inventor's technology royalty-free, or to prevent the inventor's disruptive technology from competing in the marketplace."

Malone says that when patents are reviewed by the PTAB, they are invalidated 84% of the time. Even if the inventor survives a challenge and gets to keep their patent, the big company can request another PTAB hearing on a separate issue. Each attack on a patent costs the inventor hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend against. When a small inventor lacks the funds to defend their patent in a PTAB hearing, they are often left with no other option than to give up their patent and walk away to cut losses. Even Chinese companies tied to the CCP, like ZTE, Huawei, and TikTok, are using the PTAB to invalidate the patents of Americans and take their technologies.

"Our Founding Fathers felt that patent rights were so important that they guaranteed them in the Constitution," says Malone. "Article 1 Section 8 charges Congress with the duty to protect the rights of inventors. It was the first time in history that a government was authorized to protect patents as a property right. For over two centuries, the innovation of inventors, protected by that right, helped fuel the American economy and assisted a countless number of citizens to achieve the American Dream."

"As we approach the ten-year anniversary of the AIA, there are now thousands of inventors whose dreams have been crushed and whose businesses have been destroyed -- and it's happening at an increasing rate and it's not getting better. This is not the way the patent system is supposed to work. The American Invents Act needs to be fixed."