The Death Warrant for American Ingenuity

Sooner or later we will all be working for the Chinamen. They’re good at stealing but not so hot on innovation. Gunpowder May have been their last significant contribution to civilization.

Is there ANYTHING that Barack Obama didn't Eff Up?

I have a patent on a small gun part, made and sold several thousand of them. Once they were selling reasonably well, for a small, niche market part, a larger company with a bigger name in the gun industry started selling duplicates. A letter from our attorney was replied with a basic "so sue me" letter. I inquired with the attorney, and he said "Write me a check for $25,000 and I'll start the process. Then expect to write two or three more of those, at least before we get any progress." Since we had made perhaps $8,000 or so on selling the parts, and there is no mass market for an upgrade part specific to one model of handgun only, we were done. And we were warned that if we contacted the large gun parts supply house that was selling the rip off parts, we would be sued immediately for interfering with their business. A consultation with the lawyer indicated that merely defending this meritless suit would cost more than we had made on the parts so far. I was tempted to contact the gun parts company anyway, but finally decided that losing $10-20K for the principle was just stupid. 'And the crooked SOBs at the other company made a habit of doing this, knowing that enforcing one's patent is hopelessly expensive except where the patent is worth millions. I heard that they had done this with a well known custom gunsmith, too, on another gun part. I knew him and called him. He had spend many thousands trying to stop them from stealing his design, no results other than losing more money. Small inventors have literally ZERO protection from a patent. Infringers have all the advantages. If someone attacks you and robs you with a gun, you can call the police and the government will arrest them and a government prosecutor and team of investigators will prosecute the theft at government expense. If you are robbed by a business of your patent rights - there is NO government enforcement of the patent laws, you must pay all the enforcement costs, so often these crimes go entirely unpunished. And with this new PTAB, it sounds like an even better way to steal patents from inventors. Patents are totally worthless these days. The criminal companies know that stealing your intellectual property is well worth doing.

Rule #1 You can patent a product but not an IDEA. If you have a patent idea but you are not producing it anybody who does produce it doesn't owe you a cent.