Press Release

For Immediate Release

October 18th, 2025

Regarding: The Balancing Incentives Act (BIA)

Dear Representatives Kaptur and Massie,

As the largest group representing independent inventors and startups across America, US Inventor highly commends you and fully supports your introduction of the Balancing Incentives Act (BIA).

Our members represent the source of critical American innovation that was initially harnessed and jump-started by George Washington’s signing of the Patent Act of 1790. Providing effective ownership rights to inventors from any walk of life kicked off the innovation boom that caused America to become the world’s greatest source of innovation.

Negative changes in patent law over the last two decades have significantly destroyed these key rights and the results have been disastrous. China now threatens to take the lead in almost every key future technology. A handful of large corporations threaten to become unstoppable monopolies due to lack of competition from American startups. Brilliant innovative minds are being held back and real innovation in America is in serious danger.

A major part of the destruction of the patent rights of inventors and startups has been the creation of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) by the America Invents Act of 2011 (AIA). The PTAB is an administrative court that large corporations accused of patent infringement use to invalidate such patents.

Prior to the AIA, these issues were taken up in District Court jury trials with lifetime appointed judges and adequate due process (Article III Courts). The right to a trial by jury is basic to America and guaranteed by the 7th Amendment to the US Constitution. This system was fair, Constitutional and worked well for the protection and incentivizing of American innovation.

The lobbying of large corporations sold the PTAB to Congress as a faster, less expensive and fair

alternative to District Court for determinations of patent validity. The reality is quite different, and the results have been disastrous for inventors and startups:

• More than 80% of the patents reviewed by the PTAB are fully or partially invalidated, often destroying the inventors or startups that built businesses around them.
• PTAB is not an alternative; Inventors are dragged into it against their will.
• PTAB proceedings can delay justice for years, keeping inventors from reaching an Article III court while their stolen technology continues to be exploited.
• Defending a patent at the PTAB costs between $500,000 and $800,000 according to the AIPLA, an impossible burden for most independent inventors and small businesses.
• Surviving one PTAB attack offers no protection against additional attacks.
• Almost no attorneys take PTAB cases on contingency, leaving most inventors priced out of access to any justice to defend their rights.
• A “win” at the PTAB isn’t a victory—it just means you get to keep your patent.
• Even a “win” at the PTAB isn’t final; the same patent can still be attacked again in court.
• The PTAB offers no jury, limited discovery, and panels of three “Administrative Patent Judges” who work for the very agency that profits from invalidating patents.
• Administrative Patent Judges have the power to invalidate patents—even when they possess far less technical expertise than the Patent Examiners who originally reviewed and granted those patents.

BIA simply requires the patent holder to consent to being taken to the PTAB:

• Requiring consent restores inventors’ access to justice—ensuring they can defend their rights in a real court before a jury, as the Constitution intended.
• Requiring inventor consent for PTAB proceedings aligns with Congress’s original intent—to make the PTAB a fair alternative, not a forum forced upon inventors against their will.
• Requiring inventor consent creates a natural incentive to make the PTAB fair—because if it isn’t perceived as fair, it simply won’t be chosen.
• Requiring inventor consent resolves the constitutional concerns surrounding the PTAB, because it restores the patent holder’s choice and preserves their right to an Article III court and jury trial.
• Requiring consent to the PTAB will restore access to justice for inventors who rely on contingency representation, by re-establishing fairness and confidence in the system.

We need to incentivize, not hinder the kinds of American innovation from inventors and startups that have provided so much to this great nation from the very beginning. Our failed experiment with the PTAB has allowed China to become an existential technological threat. It is enabling a handful of corporations to evade competition and move toward being monopolies. It is allowing powerful corporations to unjustly take patented technologies and destroy innovative American startups.

Requiring consent to the PTAB will restore justice and greatly increase the incentive of inventors and innovative startups in America to do what America needs. US Inventor looks forward to helping you get BIA widely supported and passed into law.

Sincerely,

Randy Landreneau, President, US Inventor, Inc.

Dirk Tomsin, Chief Operating Officer,US Inventor, Inc.

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