Small-time inventors cry foul on patent changes

But Margolin and his group, the Professional Inventors Alliance, say the changes would allow big companies to endlessly contest legitimate patents and patent applications. They say the bill would protect corporations with the means to rush to file their applications first over small inventors who actually come up with the idea, and make it unreasonably difficult for individual patent-holders to pursue legitimate lawsuits against companies that steal their inventions.

"I honestly feel that if we don't stop what the big companies are trying to do, there won't be any opportunity for us," said Ronald J. Riley, the Professional Inventors Alliance's president. "What they call patent reform is all about making it virtually impossible to enforce the patents."

Backers of some of the changes say the concerns are overblown.

"In no way do we want to limit entrepreneurs' ability to start businesses and innovators' ability to innovate. If you look at some of our big companies, they started in the garage and we understand that," said Josh Ackil, the Information Technology Industry Council's vice president of government relations. "The issue we're trying to address is the patent trolls who claim they're entrepreneurs by grubbing up patents."

Riley calls the patent troll label a "clever slur" that high-tech companies uses to tar small-time inventors who get in their way, insisting most inventors are legitimate businessmen who simply want to be able to protect their intellectual property.

The most recent version of the legislation was the result of negotiations among the high-tech industry, pharmaceutical companies and others, though disagreements remain and a final bill has yet to be filed. The House Judiciary Committee's intellectual property subcommittee, led by Smith and Berman, has held several hearings, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who chairs the Senate's intellectual property panel, also is working on a bill.

The Professional Inventors Alliance has the budget to hire only a single lobbyist at a discounted rate, and members complain their concerns have been largely neglected. They hope that will change before a bill is voted on. Otherwise, the inventors say, the proposed changes could spell disaster for the kind of people responsible for breakthrough inventions like the phonograph, the airplane and the computer.

"Small inventors are the ones that make big businesses," Margolin said. "If we don't invent and create new stuff, what are we going to be?"

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