Inventors
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Part
3: The Attitude of Upper Management at the Patent and Trademark Office
- PTO
by
Ronald
J. Riley
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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