Speaking at the Independent Inventors Conference held November 5th at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, PTO Director Kappos addressed a number of hot topics including patent reform legislation and the post-grant review provisions.  He attempted to reassure independent inventors, commenting “I understand your concerns about the potential for additional cost and additional delay in the post-grant review process.  Nobody likes post-grant challenges – not IBM, not Microsoft, not the garage inventor, not you.”

He acknowledged that within the legislation being considered that the “threshold to begin an action challenging the validity of a patent is too low,” and indicated that the PTO was working with Congress to “promote a fair, balanced, timely and cost-effective post-grant review process – and to ensure the legislation will not permit serial challenges or harassment by any one party.”

Finally, he highlighted that the advantage of the post-grant review process is that it is designed to be an alternative to litigation.  He encouraged everyone to “take some comfort in the fact that a short post-grant review process will give you a rock solid blue-ribbon patent that will be very difficult to challenge in court.”

Read the full speech here: http://www.uspto.gov/news/speeches/2009/2009nov5.jsp.