December 3rd, 2025

Dear USPTO Director John Squires,

US Inventor represents all independent inventors and patent-based startups across America and we applaud what you are doing at the USPTO regarding the PTAB. Powerful entities and those who represent them are working hard to stop you, but what you are doing is absolutely critical for the future of American innovation.

America didn’t become the worldwide leader in innovation by chance. It was NOT caused by the wealthy elite or large vested interests. America’s leadership in innovation was caused by the granting an effective right of ownership to the common person for what he or she invented (for a limited period of time). This unleashed the inventive spirit of Americans from all walks of life, and the results were staggering.

America became a world leader quickly, stayed ahead of her adversaries, and sprouted successful startups like weeds keeping monopolies at bay. Innovation was part and parcel to this great nation and a key part of the American Dream.

The key to American innovation was effective patent rights for independent inventors in garages and workshops – individuals who had great ideas but limited resources. This description fits most if not all the great American inventors of the past, as well as those who founded many of the most successful corporations today (Thomas Edison, Eli Whitney, Alexander Graham Bell, Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, etc.).

The passage of the America Invents Act was an existential blow to inventors’ rights. The way it was executed effectively eliminated the right to a trial by jury for many legitimate inventors, a right that is guaranteed by the 7th Amendment to the US Constitution.

One metric that proves the unfairness of the PTAB is the near impossibility of finding an attorney who’ll take a PTAB case on contingency. This wouldn’t be the case if the PTAB were actually a cheaper, faster and fair alternative to District Court. And since most inventors have very limited resources, the $400,000 plus needed to defend a PTAB case eliminates them from any access to justice. For this to have happened in America is unconscionable.

Those opposing you say that you don’t have the authority to take back control of PTAB institutions, but the text of the AIA specifically gave you this right:

• “The Director may not authorize an inter partes review to be instituted unless the Director determines that the information presented in the petition filed under section 311 and any response filed under section 313 shows that there is a reasonable likelihood that the petitioner would prevail with respect to at least 1 of the claims challenged in the petition.
• “The determination by the Director whether to institute an inter partes review under this section shall be final and nonappealable. ”

Some opposing you say that any negative “public perception” of potential bias at PTAB is overstated. The key stakeholders who depend on patent rights to survive, inventors and startups, overwhelmingly perceive the PTAB as biased and usually consider institution there as a “kiss of death.”

The PTAB was supposed to correct the allegedly large number of errors made by the Patent Office, but actual research has determined that this viewpoint was more the result effective marketing and lobbying than actual data.

The Sunwater Institute’s Policy Report: Patent Quality in the United States found that there were fewer mistakes made in issuing invalid claims by the USPTO than at counterparts around the world. They also found that there were more cases of valid claims not issued at the USPTO than at counterparts.

Coke Stewart, USPTO Deputy Director commented in a recent talk to inventors at the US Inventor Annual Conference that approximately 600 discretionary reviews of patents exhibited only 53 instances where there might be a possible error.

Any objective observer can see what happened. A perfect storm of corporate lobbying propaganda and lack of inventor representation in Washington, DC led to the passage of the America Invents Act of 2011. After passage, the USPTO Director appointed to materialize the new PTAB administrative court was Michelle Lee, former VP of Patents at Google!

Nothing is more important for the future of America than restoring what the Founders of this great nation intended and put into action at the very beginning. Your heroic actions in this effort are revered far and wide by the key stakeholders of the US Patent System. You are on the right side of history. Thank you, sir.

Sincerely,

Randy Landreneau, President

US Inventor, Inc.

www.USInventor.org Link to pdf