A Man Who Is His Own Lawyer Has a Fool for a Client

Background — part of my pro se Post Grant Review of U.S. Patent 12,460,537, the patent I believe copies work I disclosed first. This one is why I'm doing it without a lawyer: no micro-entity discount on the fee, nothing left to lose, and AI to help draft. New here? Start at Dispatch No. 1.

Nothing to gain — so nothing to lose

I gain nothing from this PGR. Shocking, right? No damages, no attorney fees, no license agreement, no apology from the USPTO. Another way to look at it: I have nothing to lose. None of this has anything to do with my patent. Legally, there's a clear line. Say I lose this and their patent is deemed fully valid. Well, that's the case right now. Today. I think that's wrong and needs to be corrected. But if I'm wrong and it doesn't get corrected, I'm in the same position — I just can't keep crying about it.

The patent shouldn't exist

This patent served a very different purpose (in my opinion), and it's not what the system is designed for. Remember, this is all my opinion. I'm telling my side of the story. You might argue the fact they have a patent has no impact on me… except it does. First they get to say they have a patent (which would be fine if they'd invented anything — in my opinion, they didn't). That creates confusion in the market. That's a problem that infringement doesn't address. Second, having a patent doesn't mean the actual product they built works like that (you'll see that when I start talking about § 112 later). It also does not mean that product works like my patent either. So what's the point of having a patent then? My opinion is it was an excuse to justify not licensing my technology. Why license when you can just take, right?

The back story

The system practically dares you to do it yourself

The USPTO encourages^‡ pro se prosecution of patent applications. They are super helpful and I used them a bunch for this and other patents. That part is great, but it lures the unsuspecting into a financial trap — one I've so far been careful to avoid. You get hung out to dry. Many others haven't been so lucky.

‡ “Encourages” may be too generous a word. ↩

Congress also required, by law,^†† reduced fees for so-called micro entities — i.e., poor people. If the USPTO were a corporation, it would be charged with deceptive marketing practices because the PGR fee is carved out of the discount. We'll give you a break on the fees, but when it comes to correcting our own mistakes, you pay full freight. A huge middle finger to the inventor.

It's also ironic because the PTAB (via IPR more than PGR) has traditionally been used as a weapon to crush inventors like me. When I want to use the system for its legitimate and honorable purpose, I'm priced out by this burdensome fee.

†† Micro entity status comes from the America Invents Act: 35 U.S.C. § 123 defines who qualifies, and 35 U.S.C. § 41(h) mandates the steep fee reduction — which the Unleashing American Innovators Act of 2022 actually raised to 60% (small entity) and 80% (micro-entity). So Congress just sweetened the discount… but before you ask “didn't they fix this?” — no: those reductions attach only to the prosecution-side fees the statute lists (filing, searching, examining, issuing, appealing, maintaining) and don't reach a PTAB trial fee like a PGR. Congress trimmed the cheap fees and left the single most expensive one at full freight for everyone, rich or poor. I guess no one expects the poor folks to actually want to protect their IP… if they did, they wouldn't be poor, right? ↩

I almost switched careers

Ten-year crude oil price chart (CL=F): a brief collapse below zero in 2020, recovering to about $94 by 2026. — Crude oil (CL=F), 10-year view — the 2020 collapse is the dip that made me a *micro-entity*.

Remember what happened to the oil industry around April 2020… when the price of oil went negative? Hard to fathom given where oil sits in May of 2026, but back in 2020 I took a significant financial hit — and qualified for micro-entity status. I was one of those "poor people" for a bit. I fell for the deceptive marketing.

In 2020, I seriously considered a change of occupation. I registered to take the patent Bar. Spoiler: I didn't end up taking it. But I did get past the OED's restrictions on a Master's degree in Computer Science — I'm still not sure why that specific degree carried additional restrictions (see page 4), but I had to submit actual transcripts, as if I were applying to college all over again (if I had a regular Bachelor's degree in CS, it would have been a cinch). By the way, I paid a fee for that, too.

Why I didn't switch careers

When studying for the patent Bar, I dug deeply into the world of IP, realized the state of US innovation was (and still is) in a terrible place, and I rapidly lost interest in pursuing this as a career change. At my core, I am an inventor. What I see happening in US innovation is a tragedy. I'd rather be inventing, but instead I'm navigating the system. No one benefits from that.

The previous Directors of the USPTO steered that ship far off course. I'm happy to see statements like this from the current Director, but I am also painfully aware that what I am personally seeing and experiencing in my own case will far outlive these positive developments. As long as the USPTO hands out patents without thorough review, legally handing hard-earned IP to someone else because of sloppy examination and a complete lack of accountability, we will continue to lose our competitive edge as an innovation center.

Why me, why now

In short: I know the technology and the field intimately. I'm reasonably intelligent (which is clearly up for debate). And I have practically nothing to lose. My clock is running out. If I don't file this PGR, I'll regret it. If I lose, it'll be on a procedural gotcha — not on the merits — so I'm willing to take that gamble. Heck, they probably will ignore this too.

And there's AI

Remember that whole Master's-in-Computer-Science thing? As an engineer, I can honestly say the legal system is a corrupt mess — but it's a system, and I can work with a system. All the prior art is there. All the precedential decisions are there. All this needs is to combine those into a coherent document (oh, and that burdensome fee to keep folks like me at bay). Stay tuned.

† It appears my AI-generated inventor character is slowly morphing into a Rick. Unintentional, but interesting. ↩

Dispatch No. 4 — The first time this idea was good enough to copy — the earlier, pre-patent episode that first showed this idea was worth copying.
Dispatch No. 19 — Bounding to a single stroke — where my computer-science background comes back into the argument.