The AIPR says it is open to inventors, scientists, engineers, researchers, small companies, investors, patent owners and intellectual property service providers. It has articulated a stand that generally opposes many of the proposed reforms of the patent system now being debated in Congress.

For example, it is against a change from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file system that aims to bring U.S. policy in line with patent offices around the world. It also opposes apportionment, a method of limiting damages in patent suits to the fraction of a products value represented by a patent.

The group also opposes moves in the current reform bills to re-define prior art, to limit venues for cases of infringement and to expand the ways patents can be challenged after they are granted.

The AIPR wants permanently to end the diversion of fees gathered by the US Patent and Trademark Office. It also advocates aligning patent and copyright laws and clarifying the right of patent holders to get injunctions against alleged infringers. In addition, the group wants the U.S. to work with other patent agencies to ease the process of gaining patents overseas once a U.S. patent is awarded.

The group is headed by three intellectual property activists including Alexander Poltorak, chief executive of General Patent Corp., a company he founded in 1987 initially to fight for rights to four patents he held relating to PCMCIA cards.

"We want to give independent inventors a voice," said Poltorak, president of AIPR.

In April, serial entrepreneur Steve Perlman called for a lobbying group to represent the views of working engineers on patent reform. Perlman said he was not aware of the AIPR prior to its launch Thursday.

"From looking at the press release, I agree with most if not all of what they are saying, but the devil is in the details," Perlman wrote in an email exchange. "On the surface, everything they are saying makes perfect sense, and inventors sorely need an organization to represent their interests," he added.

A handful of industry groups have formed in the last two years to lobby on various sides of the patent reform debate. So far, most represent the views of corporate members.