All of the "millions of jobs lying in wait" due to patent reform indecision
The patent reform bill was a slam dunk in the U.S. Senate earlier this month, passing with a 95 to 5 vote. The House has decided to debate the patent reform bill. This is in its own version though. Lawmakers do not agree on how to do the patent reform bill even though they all believe it is necessary meaning it can be harder getting the Senate version of the patent reform bill passed in the House. Six decades of stagnation in the U.S. Patent and Trade Office while technology has advanced by leaps and bounds has led to a backlog of more than 700,000 patent applications and an average three year wait for patent authorization. The bill would make the wait time go down to a year so that “millions of jobs lying in wait” could be resolved quicker according to USPTO director David Kappos. Kappos gave a presentation Wednesday on Intellectual Property to the House Subcommittee.
Key provisions of patent reform
The USPTO gets about 500,000 patent applications yearly. That means lots of work processing. Congress sets the USPTO spending budget, determines the fees it can charge and spends some of the revenue on programs unrelated to patent authorization. There is one large change the patent reform would trigger. The patent office would be allowed to not only keep all of the money it makes, but also to create its own fee structure. Kappos said the USPTO would have an additional $300 million a year to hire more staff and invest in a state-of-the-art patent review and approval system. Another great thing the patent reform would do is keep patent disputes out of courts. USPTO would be able to, instead of using litigation, look at 3rd party invalidated patents commercially. The United States patent system would become a first-to-file system instead of first-to-invent as a controversial patent reform.
First-to-file provision a sticking point
The most argumentation has come from the first-to-file part of the patent reform. Small inventors are unable to file patent applications as easy as large businesses. This is a concern many against the Senate version have made known. Currently, a small inventor that proves it has beat a large competitor to innovation gets the patent, regardless of whether the large business filed first. The bill also raises concerns that small inventors can be unable to afford to go through litigation. They will end up giving up because of huge fees. Those familiar with the patent reform issue expect the House to focus on aspects of the bill that increase the USPTO budget and scratch most of everything else in the U.S. Senate version.
Information from
CNN Money
money.cnn.com/2011/03/30/technology/patent_reform/index.htm?iid=HLM
bNET
bnet.com/blog/technology-business/senate-passes-a-patent-bill-but-don-8217t-hold-your-breath-for-actual-reform/9124
Washington Post
washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-tech/post/qanda-small-inventors-raise-patent-overhaul-concerns/2011/03/28/AFLJ9NpB_blog.html
Source for this article - Patent reform bill aims to streamline approval, spur job creation by MoneyBlogNewz.
Article Source: JS2 Article Spinner
