Two US senators have revived their push to get the USPTO and the Small Business Administration (SBA) to better educate small business owners on how to protect and patent their inventions. They are reintroducing the Small Business Innovation Protection Act, which would require the USPTO and SBA to jointly develop in-person or online training materials about the patent process and increase the amount of patent-related information at Small Business Development Centers. The legislation will make it easier to train and equip America’s small business owners with the resources and information necessary to obtain and protect patents. Sens. Gary Peters said in a press release, “Supporting small business and independent inventors is a priority for the USPTO.”

http://techrights.org/2017/04/01/sbipa-and-sba/

The introduction of the legislation is criticised in the above article. Schestowitz says the Act is presented to the public in a misleading manner, as if the solution to a lot of patents is yet more patents. SBA would be compelled to waste budget. Politicians are using a strategy that will never improve things – trying to oversell patents to defend from patents. A patent portfolio for a small business would act only as a retaliation to patent lawsuits. This would not work well for a small business against a large one. What is preferable is a government programme that would sponsor legal defence for small businesses attacked by patent trolls. This would eliminate trolls before they can proceed to extorting the next small business.