Patent Expert Says House Bill Adopted Today Weakens U.S. Patent System and Hurts Entrepreneurs

General Patent Corporation Chairman Alexander Poltorak, a national expert on the U.S. patent system and author of two books on intellectual property, condemned the House of Representatives’ passage this afternoon of the patent reform legislation.

“The passage of the Patent Reform Act of 2007 in the House of Representatives is a severe threat to our entire patent system,” Poltorak said. “As a whole it means weaker protection for universities, small inventors and entrepreneurs across America.”

“The bill undercuts domestic industry and hurts independent inventors – the very backbone of American ingenuity,” said Poltorak, whose company has helped defend the patent rights of many American inventors over the past 20 years. “The House bill renders patents nearly worthless, which will consequently weaken the incentive to innovate. It will stifle innovation and entrepreneurship.”

Congress should instead consider a two-tiered patent system that creates different levels of patentability standards with different rights for each type, said Poltorak who formed an alliance, American Innovators for Patent Reform, to promote his proposal. A two-tiered system, which has proven successful in much of Europe and other parts of the world, would improve patent quality, reduce the backlog of pending patent applications and also minimize patent litigation, Poltorak said.

Poltorak, a former Russian dissident who fled the Soviet Union with his family in 1982, founded General Patent Corporation in 1987 after using his background as a physicist to form a high tech company that develop and patent technology for computers and laptops. He has successfully defended patents against business giants such as I.B.M., Motorola and TDK. He is the co-author of Essentials of Licensing Intellectual Property (2004) and Essentials of Intellectual Property (2002), both part of a series.