Posts Tagged: "patent quality"

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.

As a result of filing the world’s highest number of patent applications, China is often attacked for trading in quality for quantity. However, Michael Lin of Marks&Clerk explains that a better understanding of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) and the Chinese patent system shows that patent quality is in fact, not declining but increasing.

The Main Street Patent Coalition may be the entity with the single most misleading name in the history of misleading organization names…. According to the LA Time, White Castle has 9,600 employees. How exactly is that a small business? … The corporate members of the National Restaurant Association, and the members of the National Retail Federation are some of the largest corporations in the United States. The American Gaming Association membership likewise includes some of the largest corporations in America, including several of the largest banks in the world, including Goldman, Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Ocean Tomo released the results of its Patent Quality Benchmark Study. The Patent Quality Study is intended to provide a benchmark for those studying patent quality across the 430 United States Patent Classes as defined by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The Study reflects Nanotechnology (class 977) as the number one technology class for patent quality.

The EPO was ranked first for patent quality among the world’s five largest patent offices for the second consecutive year in a survey of corporate and private practice IP professionals conducted jointly by Thomson Reuters and Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) magazine. The annual benchmarking survey, published in the June issue of the magazine, finds that the EPO leads by a wide margin in terms of perceived patent quality, and has even improved its position over last year.

Yesterday Director Kappos deviated a bit from his routine and utilized a powerpoint presentation, which was titled: “The USPTO by the Numbers: Progress and Reform at Our Nation’s Innovation Agency.” While some of the slides tell what appears to be a remarkable turn around story, the real news to come out of Director Kappos’ presentation is that he is challenging the Patent Office to get down to a patent application backlog of 650,000 by the end of fiscal year 2011. To paraphrase Sam Cooke: what a wonderful world it would be!

The new procedures measure seven diverse aspects of the examination process to form a more comprehensive composite quality metric. The composite quality metric is designed to reveal the presence of quality issues arising during examination, and to aid in identification of their sources so that problems may be remediated by training, and so that the presence of outstanding quality procedures may be identified and encouraged. The procedures will be implemented for fiscal year 2011.

A packed room of at least 200 individuals, including the newly retired Chief Judge Paul Michel, former USPTO Director Q. Todd Dickinson, former USPTO Director Bruce Lehman and others listened to Kappos give an impassioned speech about how innovation can create jobs, how the Patent Office is unfortunately continuing to hold jobs hostage due to a staggering backlog of pending patent applications and how American economic security depends upon development of a comprehensive national IP strategy. I have heard Kappos talk about the job creating power of innovation and the role the USPTO can and should play, but there was something different about his speech today.

I want to thank Mr. Quinn for graciously inviting me to write a post on my forthcoming book The Decline and Fall of the American Entrepreneur: How Little Known Laws and Regulations are Killing Innovation, which should be available on Amazon.com in December 2009. This book started as a project based on my observations. I deal with technology start-up entrepreneurs…

Just over two weeks ago I wrote an article explaining that quality review at the USPTO was changing for the better.  Shortly after this article published I received a telephone call from the Office of Public Affairs at the USPTO.  We chatted about this article and one thing lead to another and ultimately I spoke with Acting Commissioner for Patents,…

Earlier today I heard a rumor from an exceptionally reliable source regarding the United States Patent and Trademark Office efforts to reform patent quality review.  Quality review, or QR for short, has become an anchor around the neck of patent examiners, and more than any other single issue has lead to the astronomical backlog of patent applications now facing the…