Comments on: Proposal to Support PTO, Entrepreneurs & Inventors http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/04/20/proposal-to-support-pto-entrepreneurs-inventors/id=2831/ Patents, Software Patents, Patent Applications & Patent Law Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:54:32 +0000 hourly 1 By: TT http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/04/20/proposal-to-support-pto-entrepreneurs-inventors/id=2831/#comment-2241 TT Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:58:32 +0000 http://www.ipwatchdog.com/?p=2831#comment-2241 "Another way to spend $100 million would be to recall retired examiners back to the Patent Office. Why not create a special group of ex-examiners who can come in and dive into the backlog of pending cases? You could even open up this special team to retired patent attorneys who no longer have an affiliation with a law firm or any client docket. If you were to pay these retired patent experts $100 per hour that would give you 1,000,000 hours of time to devote to cleaning up the backlog of cases. You could even split this 1,000,000 hours up so that some if it would go to examination of applications and to handling the growing backlog of appeals at the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. From what I have recently been told there were about 6,000 appeals filed in all of 2008, and so far in calendar year 2009 there have already been 6,000 appeals filed. Those in the industry know why appeals are up so much, but lets save that discussion for later on this week. In any event, the BPAI could sure use some help too!" My admiration for USPTO management is limited but to be fair the USPTO did try very hard to implement a plan to bring back retired Examiners on a part time basis. I think they were to work on the dockets of Examiners who for one reason or another had left the office. A job no one likes. I heard the proposal ran afoul of Office of Management and Budget civil service regulations. I have always been curious as to how Patent Lawyers would fair as Examiners. My suspicion is not well. I think they would have difficulty with the search and would have much difficulty with the production requirements of the USPTO. In fact, I don’t know and it would be fun to watch. However, only a Primary Examiner can issue a US Patent and it would take years for an Attorney to achieve Primary status. They certainly could never join the Examining Corps as a Primary. Logically there are only two ways to reduce the backlog, get more Examiners and raise the productivity of the existing Examiners, i.e. reduce the hours allotted to an Examiner for each application. It is the suspicion of many Examiners that the recent spate of rule changes concerning numbers of claims, IDS’s etc has as a motivation USPTO management’s desire to reduce the hours per case. With the renewed emphasis on “patent quality” there would seem to be a certain tension between “quality” of examination and reducing the time given to a case. “Another way to spend $100 million would be to recall retired examiners back to the Patent Office. Why not create a special group of ex-examiners who can come in and dive into the backlog of pending cases? You could even open up this special team to retired patent attorneys who no longer have an affiliation with a law firm or any client docket. If you were to pay these retired patent experts $100 per hour that would give you 1,000,000 hours of time to devote to cleaning up the backlog of cases. You could even split this 1,000,000 hours up so that some if it would go to examination of applications and to handling the growing backlog of appeals at the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. From what I have recently been told there were about 6,000 appeals filed in all of 2008, and so far in calendar year 2009 there have already been 6,000 appeals filed. Those in the industry know why appeals are up so much, but lets save that discussion for later on this week. In any event, the BPAI could sure use some help too!”

My admiration for USPTO management is limited but to be fair the USPTO did try very hard to implement a plan to bring back retired Examiners on a part time basis. I think they were to work on the dockets of Examiners who for one reason or another had left the office. A job no one likes. I heard the proposal ran afoul of Office of Management and Budget civil service regulations.

I have always been curious as to how Patent Lawyers would fair as Examiners. My suspicion is not well. I think they would have difficulty with the search and would have much difficulty with the production requirements of the USPTO. In fact, I don’t know and it would be fun to watch. However, only a Primary Examiner can issue a US Patent and it would take years for an Attorney to achieve Primary status. They certainly could never join the Examining Corps as a Primary.

Logically there are only two ways to reduce the backlog, get more Examiners and raise the productivity of the existing Examiners, i.e. reduce the hours allotted to an Examiner for each application. It is the suspicion of many Examiners that the recent spate of rule changes concerning numbers of claims, IDS’s etc has as a motivation USPTO management’s desire to reduce the hours per case. With the renewed emphasis on “patent quality” there would seem to be a certain tension between “quality” of examination and reducing the time given to a case.

]]> By: Gene Quinn http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/04/20/proposal-to-support-pto-entrepreneurs-inventors/id=2831/#comment-2208 Gene Quinn Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:38:51 +0000 http://www.ipwatchdog.com/?p=2831#comment-2208 Karen- Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on this story. It is sad to hear that highly educated people are leaving the US and going abroad to further their research. I wish I could say that comes as a surprise. This type of brain-drain needs to be stopped. I would love to hear from those who are willing to share their stories with respect to not being able to get funding to move US businesses forward, as well as stories about how it was more advantageous to go overseas to further research and development. Getting this out into the open can only help. -Gene Karen-

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on this story. It is sad to hear that highly educated people are leaving the US and going abroad to further their research. I wish I could say that comes as a surprise. This type of brain-drain needs to be stopped.

I would love to hear from those who are willing to share their stories with respect to not being able to get funding to move US businesses forward, as well as stories about how it was more advantageous to go overseas to further research and development. Getting this out into the open can only help.

-Gene

]]> By: Karen Tinsley-Kim http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/04/20/proposal-to-support-pto-entrepreneurs-inventors/id=2831/#comment-2197 Karen Tinsley-Kim Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:48:17 +0000 http://www.ipwatchdog.com/?p=2831#comment-2197 This is an excellent read and well developed point that for the US to be effective in helping other worldwide economies, we need to get our house in order first. Therefore we need to keep the US taxpayer funding here, drop by drop, as necessary. My new business could offer jobs here, but the funding is very hard to find. Yet, I count my blessings everyday as a newly-patented inventor, as I have friends and family who are still waiting for theirs. I also have American-educated PhD friends in Asia who have sadly, but truthfully for now, come to the conclusion that they can get further along in their R&D in the tech sector there than here. I suspect part of that also has to do with tediousness the US Patent & Trademark Office. The continuing-to-grow economy in Asia, especially in China, seems to be easier for our government to ignore than deal with, let alone consider competing with. It is not hard to see the strategy Asia has. Why won't we wake up? This is an excellent read and well developed point that for the US to be effective in helping other worldwide economies, we need to get our house in order first. Therefore we need to keep the US taxpayer funding here, drop by drop, as necessary. My new business could offer jobs here, but the funding is very hard to find. Yet, I count my blessings everyday as a newly-patented inventor, as I have friends and family who are still waiting for theirs.

I also have American-educated PhD friends in Asia who have sadly, but truthfully for now, come to the conclusion that they can get further along in their R&D in the tech sector there than here. I suspect part of that also has to do with tediousness the US Patent & Trademark Office. The continuing-to-grow economy in Asia, especially in China, seems to be easier for our government to ignore than deal with, let alone consider competing with. It is not hard to see the strategy Asia has. Why won’t we wake up?

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