On the Patent Office and Other Problems Facing the Country

There are two common complaints about the current state of the USPTO:

1. Quality -- This is exemplified by the cases you read about every day such as Amazon's One-Click patent and the Eolas web plug-in patent. Critics charge that examiners don't do a good job searching for prior art, and allow lots of applications that should be rejected.
   
2. Timeliness -- The current backlog at the USPTO is about 3 years, and growing by about 85,000 this year. That means that an application filed today won't be seen by an examiner until the end of 2008, if the situation doesn't continue to worsen. This makes it hard for businesses to seek protection for their innovations because technologies will make it to the market a year or two before the review process begins, and three or four years before the patent is issued. In the technology industry, that is typically beyond the lifespan of a product. What good is a patent on an obsolete technology?
   

The purpose of patents is to provide a limited monopoly for inventors (typically 20 years) in exchange for disclosing the detailed workings of the invention to the public. After the limited monopoly expires, anyone can read the patent and use the invention without paying a license. The Founding Fathers believed this limited protection would provide an incentive to inventors to share their ideas and serve the public interest by facilitating the free flow of information. Many people agree that the patent system has served those functions well, and some even attribute to patent process (combined with good 'ole American ingenuity) the US's economic dominance. However, the patent process must be modernized if it is to continue to be useful.

Hopefully, this brief write-up has explained the problems facing the PTO. My next entry will explore some potential solutions. But for now, I've got a bus to catch. (Then, all-I-can-eat sushi!)