Inter Partes Review Was Supposed to Help Independent Inventors — And It Did

Biting the hand that feeds you.

Independent inventors have spent more than a decade blaming inter partes review (IPR) for their inability to enforce patents, monetize inventions, or survive litigation against larger companies. (There was a fundamental flaw in the IPR system that was abused repeatedly – more on that below.)

They point to high invalidation rates at the PTAB and argue that the system is stacked against them.

They are wrong.

Not because IPRs were perfect—they weren’t—but because the real problem was never the forum. The real problem was patent quality, misplaced responsibility, and a fundamental misunderstanding of how patents actually create value.

Ironically, by campaigning against IPRs instead of fixing the real issue, independent inventors have made it harder, not easier, for themselves to get paid.

This post explains why.

Why IPRs Exist: Cost, Speed, and Technical Accuracy

Inter partes review was created under the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011, signed into law by Barack Obama, with a straightforward objective: reduce the cost and uncertainty of patent litigation by resolving validity disputes inside the Patent Office rather than in district court.

Before the AIA, questions of novelty and obviousness were routinely decided in front of generalist judges, often with juries, applying legal standards poorly suited to highly technical disputes. Litigation was slow, expensive, unpredictable, and often disconnected from patent-law fundamentals.

IPRs were designed to fix that.

They moved validity challenges into a specialized forum—the Patent Trial and Appeal Board—staffed by administrative patent judges who understand claim construction, prior art, and prosecution history. The process is deliberately narrow, fast, and decisive. There are no damages. No jury theatrics. No sprawling discovery.

Either the claims survive, or they don’t.

As the system came online, many independent inventors were shocked to see patents invalidated quickly and efficiently. That outcome was not evidence of bias—it was evidence that the system was doing exactly what it was designed to do: eliminate weak patents early, before years of litigation expense piled up.

The High-Stakes Calculus of Bringing an IPR

One of the most misunderstood aspects of IPR is who decides to bring one.

The patent owner does not choose an IPR. The infringer does.

And that decision is extraordinarily high-stakes.

From the infringer’s perspective, the upside of a successful IPR is absolute. If the patent is invalidated, the entire lawsuit disappears. No infringement. No damages. No injunction. No settlement leverage. Everything goes away.

But the downside is just as extreme.

If the infringer challenges a patent in an IPR and loses, that patent emerges gold-plated. It has survived a focused validity challenge, under a demanding standard, in front of experts whose job is to kill bad patents.

From that point forward, the infringer is all but done for in district court and on appeal, with dramatically increased damages exposure.

An IPR that fails to invalidate doesn’t just fail—it strengthens the patent.

That is why IPRs are never filed casually. They are not fishing expeditions. They are not routine procedural steps. They are existential bets.

If you challenge and lose, you don’t get a second chance to pretend the patent might be invalid.

This risk profile matters, because it drives everything that follows.

Selection Bias: Why IPR Invalidation Rates Are So High

Independent inventor groups cite the 70–80% invalidation rate at the PTAB as proof the system is unfair. That statistic is real—and completely misunderstood.

High invalidation rates are not evidence of PTAB bias.

They are evidence of selection bias.

Because bringing an IPR is so risky, infringers only do it when they are extremely confident they will win. That confidence usually comes from one place: the patent is weak, and there is clear invalidating prior art.

If the case is close, uncertain, or defensible, infringers often skip the IPR entirely and stay in district court. Why risk turning a defensible patent into a gold-plated one?

As a result, the PTAB does not see a representative sample of all asserted patents. It sees a pre-filtered subset: patents that sophisticated defendants believe are fundamentally flawed.

When you only challenge patents you expect to invalidate, high invalidation rates are not surprising. They are inevitable.

The key point:

The IPR invalidation rate is not a PTAB problem. It is a selection bias problem.

The One Real Problem: Serial IPR Abuse

There was a real problem with the early IPR system, and independent inventors were right to complain about it.

For a time, the rules allowed multiple, repeated IPRs against the same patent. Well-funded defendants could file serial challenges, slightly modifying arguments or prior art, and force smaller patent owners to defend over and over until they ran out of money or until one of the many IPRs succeeded and the patent was invalidated.

That loophole allowed abuse. It needed to be fixed.

But fixing that loophole did not require dismantling the IPR system itself. The correct solution was to limit repetitive challenges—not to eliminate early validity review altogether.

Unfortunately, those two ideas were often conflated.

Why Independent Inventor Patents Were Targeted

Independent inventors were disproportionately targeted for IPR for a simple reason: many of their patents were easy targets.

This was not bad luck. It was the predictable outcome of early (and very poor) decisions.

Independent inventors often cut corners:

• Choosing low-cost, cut-rate, bottom feeder patent attorneys (or even worse, writing their own patents )
• Pressuring counsel to file quickly rather than correctly
• Skipping thorough prior-art searches
• Prioritizing “getting a patent” over designing one for enforcement

The result is patents that look impressive but collapse under scrutiny.

These patents are not built around detectability. They don’t map cleanly to real products. They are easy to design around. They are not structured with litigation or licensing in mind.

From a defendant’s perspective, these patents practically invite an IPR.

The Misplaced Blame on the PTAB

When those patents are invalidated, independent inventors often blame the PTAB. That reaction is understandable—and wrong.

The PTAB did not create the weak patent. It exposed it.

Patent attorneys are workmen hired to do a job. If the client does not want to pay for the painful back and forth with the examiner to focus the claims, the patent attorney takes what the examiner offers.

There is a point where the patent attorneys cannot push back. They get paid to prosecute, not to tell clients uncomfortable truths. If a client demands speed over rigor, many attorneys will comply.

But responsibility for patent quality does not rest with the PTAB or with the attorney.

It rests with the inventor and the CEO.

You cannot outsource enforceability.

If you don’t understand who infringes your patent, how infringement is detected, how claims are construed, and how competitors design around them, the problem is not the forum that invalidates your claims. The problem is that you never built enforceable claims in the first place.

Patents Are Not Expensive — They Are Far Too Cheap

Independent inventors often argue that patents are “too expensive” at $40,000 or $50,000. That belief drives many of the bad decisions above.

In reality, patents are cheap—too cheap.

Low cost encourages lottery-ticket thinking: file something broad and vague, hope it hits, and figure out enforcement later. That mindset almost guarantees weak patents.

Imagine a world where filing a patent cost $1 million. People would still file—but only after intense diligence. They would research exhaustively. They would plan enforcement strategies. They would understand claim scope, design-arounds, and infringement pathways.

The problem is not that patents cost too much. The problem is that they cost so little that people treat them casually – and then act surprised when reality intervenes.

IPRs Are the Independent Inventor’s Best Friend

Here is the uncomfortable truth: IPRs were one of the best things that ever happened to serious patent holders.

An early IPR challenge—if you survive it—validates your patent in a way district court never can. It reduces uncertainty. It strengthens leverage. It narrows disputes. It makes settlement rational.

And it does so at a fraction of the cost of proving validity through years of district court litigation.

Removing IPRs doesn’t protect independent inventors. It forces them into slower, riskier, more expensive fights in front of less specialized decision-makers.

That is not progress.

The Irony: Independent Inventors Made Enforcement Harder

By attacking IPRs instead of improving patent quality, independent inventors harmed themselves.

They eliminated a mechanism that punished weak patents early and rewarded strong ones. In its place, they now face higher costs, more uncertainty, and fewer paths to efficient monetization.

The result is predictable:

Fewer independent inventors will get paid.

The Real Lesson

The lesson of IPR is not that the system is hostile to inventors. The lesson is that patent strength is not automatic, and it is not something you can outsource.

A patent is not a trophy. It is a tool.

If you design it poorly, it will fail—whether at the PTAB or in district court. IPRs didn’t create that reality. They merely revealed it faster.

And for those willing to take responsibility, that was never a bug. It was the point.