| Pressure on the American Patent System | |
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The upper management of the PTO (aka USPTO) has consistently over several years shown contempt for inventors. They have made many disparaging public remarks about independent inventors. It is also clear that they still do not understand the difference between the 99% of inventors who are not commercially successful and the 1% who are successful. They have used some of our most prolific inventors as scapegoats in an attempt to divert blame from the PTO.
PTO upper management has threatened numerous inventors and industry groups to keep them quiet about issues that the PTO is promoting. They have intentionally given some inventors a difficult time about allowance of claims and they continue to cause delays of up to five years between office actions for such inventors.
Several PTO upper managers' actions related to blaming inventors for problems that are clearly the result of the PTO not doing it's job have caused a number of inventors great harm. They have personally libeled these inventors and have worked with large corporations, who have a long history of stealing inventors' work to help them avoid compensating these inventors. The large corporations have worked to spread the falsehoods, and have tried to use their influence to stop the media from covering both large corporate abuses and philanthropic activities of independent inventors. In many cases, they have succeeded.
Facing High-Tech Issues, New Patents Chief is Reinventing a Staid Agency, published in the Law section of the New York Times on Friday, July 14, 1995, did not surprise most of us who are critics of Mr. Lehman's attempts to ram through changes to our patent system. "Mr. Lehman asserts that his detractors are mostly weekend hobbyists who do not realize his agency is crucial to the economy because it regulates the ideas behind high-tech businesses." I am sure that numerous members of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, the American College of Physician Inventors Hall of Fame, and several Nobel Laureates were also surprised that they were described as weekend hobbyists.
A fundamental flaw in this bureaucrat's reasoning is that the agency is crucial: It is innovation that is crucial and not the agency. Most of the innovators who have joined in this fight are full time innovators and entrepreneurs. The fact of the matter is that Mr. Lehman's arrogance is the reason we are criticizing him. He has consistently refused to listen to anyone who disagrees with his views, including a very large percentage of his own staff.
The latest insult to inventors came from Mr. Lehman when he told reporter Rory J. O'Connor of Mercury News, Washington Bureau, that his critics are in the Timothy McVeigh category, people on the lunatic fringe (story published 4-17-97). In light of Bruce Lehman's poor attitude towards inventors and the fact that he has consistently abused his position to harm inventors, I have no choice except to characterize him as an aspiring little Hitler who is willing to compromise our patent system to create his personal kingdom in the form of a privatized patent office.
Don Banner, a former patent commissioner who is dramatically better qualified than Mr. Lehman also has been very critical of Mr. Lehman's attempts to alter the patent system. The fact that Mr. Banner is a Democrat makes his criticism much more credible. Many other persons feel Mr. Lehman doesn't understand the implications of his changes. Please note that Mr. Lehman is neither a patent attorney nor an inventor.
A significant factor in Mr. Banner's credibility is the fact that he was a patent commissioner under the Carter Administration. The fact that he is a Democrat that is extremely critical of the management of the PTO under another Democratic Administration makes his views more creditable than they would be if a Republican offered the same criticism.
PTO management has repeatedly claimed that the vast majority of inventors will enjoy a longer term of patent protection under the 20 year from filling provision that was included in GATT. This is another example of the PTO misrepresenting the facts. They claim the average pendency is 19.5 months based on the most current continuation. It is not an accident that their statistics do not take into account the previous applications that led to the last application from which the patent issues.
A GAO report of 1995 patent pendency showed that slightly over thirty percent of all patent applications have continuations, and that the average pendency of that group of patents was 47.2 months. It is likely that patents with continuations are those of more important technology. This report shows how one can lie with statistics, and that while the 19.5-month claim is true in the literal sense, it is a gross misrepresentation of the reality.
An analysis of patent pendency by Gregory Aharonian of Internet Patent News Service showed the average pendency of 1000 software patents to be 34 months. Some other disciplines are twice as long.
The PTO claims the changes address the abuses of our patent system. The PTO has perpetuated the worst abuses, and none of the proposed changes address PTO abuses. The PTO is a bureaucracy whose upper management is willing to compromise the source of our prosperity to cover-up it's own failures, justify burdensome fees to increase its size and budget, and to give it more power.
The end result of the patent office's attempt to lay blame for submarine patents on inventors is that they have been maneuvered by the foreign multinationals into a position where they had to back measures that are contrary to America's interests. I am not sure at this time whether the patent office has been duped into backing destruction of innovation or if other incentives have been offered by multinationals to key persons.
I believe that PTO upper management is promoting early publication to increase its budget and justify increasing staff to handle publication. Most bureaucrats want larger budgets and staff to increase their stature.
Mr. Lehman's efforts to move the patent office into the computer age have serious flaws. They are, in large part based, on doing text searches to locate art. The system has traditionally been based on classification searches and that system is much more effective than text searches. The problem is that Mr. Lehman is dismantling both the classification system and the quality control group that reviews some issued patents, rushing towards the text search method. This is against the advise of the staff who really understand the system, and without any trial interval to compare the two methods.
Mr. Lehman is clearly an effective bureaucrat. He is effective at manipulating the legislative process to minimize participation of those who don't share his views. He uses every underhanded trick available such as burying provisions in other legislation and introducing at least one bill on a Wednesday of one week followed by the bill being available from the printing office the next Tuesday and the hearing on the bill on Thursday.
Our own patent office has been systematically crippling our patent system at the request of Japan and multinational corporations. The current patent commissioner is neither a patent attorney nor an inventor. He characterized inventors who oppose his policies as "weekend hobbyists". Deputy commissioner Mike Kurt said that inventors who published the "Open Letter to President Clinton from 59 U.S. inventors" concerning the 20 year language of the GATT enabling legislation did not understand the issues. The group who is opposing him includes many Hall of Fame inventors and several Nobel laureates, who I am sure were surprised that our patent commissioner had such a low opinion of them. I agree with Lehman that Administrative solutions could solve many problems. Mike Kurt resigned to run AIPLA, which represents the interests of multinational corporations. Let's start with replacement of several of the PTO's upper administrators.
Mr. Lehman has made it clear to all the inventor community that he will make us sorry if we don't show him the proper respect. His attitude is even worse than Nixon's was during Watergate. He holds whole industries hostage. His threats are usually veiled or delivered without any witnesses present.
Mr. Lehman appears to have teamed up with Ford Motor Company, which is well known in inventor circles for always litigating inventors into bankruptcy, to spread submarine patent arguments falsely. Mr. Lehman's motive is apparently to avoid having the PTO held accountable for its role in causing excessive patent delays. Moreover, Ford's and their allies motive is to avoid compensating Jerome Lemelson for his patents. Lemelson is the third most prolific inventor America has produced (after Edison and Land), and he is the most prolific inventor alive today.
Last year both the Washington Times and the Washington Post reported how Mr. Lehman screwed up when he, loudly and in front of numerous witnesses, told one of Professor Boyle's colleagues -- Professor Joel Paul -- to give Boyle the following message (Lehman's foul language removed): "After indicating that you were angry with me because I [Boyle] had written an Op Ed in the Washington Times which was critical of your department's "White Paper," you told him to pass on to me the following message -- that you were "more powerful than [Boyle] knows" that "[Boyle] will learn I am a bad enemy." You also said that you "know a lot of people" and "can hurt [Boyle] in ways he couldn't imagine," that you would "destroy [Boyle]," would "get him," that you would "call the university" and "stop him getting tenure." During this conversation, you also told my colleague that you would "rip [Boyle's] throat out" and "chase [Boyle] to the ends of the earth."
Inventors, small business interests, and most universities want these bills defeated H.R. 400 / S. 507 are being promoted by those who abuse inventors. We want the would-be little Hitler who is "more powerful than [Boyle] knows" and several of his cronies removed!!
The combination of an arrogant attitude towards inventors by our current patent commissioner, who characterizes inventors who oppose him as "weekend hobbyists", and the statement by former PTO employee Mike Kirk, that inventors who signed the open letter to the President did so because "they didn't understand what they were signing", and a clear pattern of half-truths or outright lies by the PTO about issues such as "submarine patents" makes it clear that the upper management of the PTO should be replaced..
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