Posts Tagged: "deputy director"

This will be the first time that Lee has had a confirmation hearing. The timing suggests that the Obama Administration and Senator Reid think that they can get Lee confirmed prior to the end of this Congressional session, which may well be the case. Assuming that this hearing will be more than just a show, there are a number of difficult questions that should be asked of Lee… Why is the Patent Office secretly subjecting applications to extraordinary scrutiny? Do you support fee-shifting legislation to combat the perceived problem of “patent trolls”? Does Congress need to step in and amend 35 U.S.C 101 to provide a more clear definition of what is patent eligible?

Back on June 2, 2014, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) wrote to President Obama expressing concern with the fact that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has been without a director for more than 16 months. A further 11 weeks has passed and we are still without a presidential nominee to run the USPTO. Between the diametrically opposed lobby groups who love and hate patents, the reality that many candidates who have been approached have declined, and those qualified candidates who are willing to accept cannot get support in the Senate, President Obama may not have a Director during his second term, which is truly embarrassing.

Lee will tell Congress that the USPTO is on pace during FY 2014 to receive nearly 600,000 patent applications, which represents an increase of more than 5% as compared to FY 2013. The PTO backlog of unexamined patent applications is less than 620,000 which is down from more than 750,000 in 2009 (a 17.3 percent decrease)… On a cynical note, I will observe that reducing the backlog will become much easier for the USPTO, as will meeting pendency goals, based upon the United States Supreme Court’s breathtaking decision in Alice v. CLS Bank. While not a subject of this hearing, as more and more becomes per se unpatentable as the result of 35 U.S.C. 101, the USPTO should easily be able to meet these goals, particularly in light of the reality that over 50% of patents issued by the USPTO related to software innovations.

If there was a major message to take away from Michelle K. Lee’s speech at Stanford Law School on Friday, June 27, it was that the patent system needs change to properly address the needs of an ever-growing list of stakeholders in the patent process, including the general public… Lee argues that, currently, the benefits of maintaining our country’s patent system outweigh the costs, but the dialogue which needs to effect positive change requires a critical view of the role of patents in regards to innovation. In this respect, Lee is quick to point out that patents aren’t the only drivers of innovation. The first-mover advantage of bringing a product to market before others can be its own incentive to innovate, she said, and open source models are chosen by some organizations that develop technology. Copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets are other options through which innovation can be protected.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today announced the appointment of Michelle K. Lee as the next Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Lee currently serves as the Director of the USPTO’s Silicon Valley satellite office and will begin her new role at USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, VA, on January 13, 2014.

Now the wait continues for the announcement of a new Director, which could come at any time. I have been hearing rumors about who it may be, but at this time I’m not ready to publicly speculate. There seems to be a political candidate with ties to the tech industry that has risen to the top of the Obama White House list.

We begin by discussing first action allowances and whether they are frowned upon, then discuss the examination process and weave our way to Track 1 and whether you really must use Track 1 for patents likely to be litigated because you get a much more condensed, streamlined prosecution history. Over the past 10 days I have also interviewed Peggy Focarino (Commissioner for Patents), Deborah Cohn (Commissioner for Trademarks) and Peter Pappas (Chief of Staff). These interviews are being transcribed and prepared for publication. So stay tuned.

Part 2 of my interview with Deputy Under Secretary Rea picks up with discussion of the America Invents Act. We generally discussed the rulemaking process, the fact that the post-grant proposed rules are a bit late in coming, comments and what the USPTO will do with them, as well as the upcoming Road Show the USPTO is taking across America for the purpose of discussing implementation of the America Invents Act.