米国 USPTOに関する批判

USPTOに対する批判２題

その１
Former patent officials say backlog should become a top priority (from Government Executive)
CongressDaily December 12, 2008

Reducing the Patent and Trademark Office's growing backlog of applications should be one of the highest priorities for the agency in the Obama administration, several former high-level PTO officials agreed Thursday...(more)


その２
Congress Should Enact Rule 56 Immediately (from PLI)
12 December 2008
Over the past several years I have been a harsh critic of the United States Patent & Trademark Office because there are substantial problems facing the US patent system and I do not believe any of the reforms urged by the USPTO are calculated in any meaningful way to address those problems. According to the recently released 2008 USPTO Performance and Accountability Report the overall average pendency of a patent application is 32.2 months, and the average wait for the Patent Office to respond to the applicant on the merits of the application by returning a First Office Action is 25.6 months. So on average you file your application and then wait more than two years for the Patent Office to give any substantive response. If your invention relates to computers or communication technology the wait for the First Office Action is even longer; 30.8 months for computers and 32.5 months for communications. Of course this means that the average pendency in those areas is well more than the overall Office average as well; specifically 42.4 months to completion for computers and related technologies and 43.6 months for communications technologies. This is extremely disheartening given that for many of these inventions by the time the Patent Office ultimately gets around to responding to the applicant on the merits or actually issues a patent technology has moved on to the next generation, which will undoubtedly wait around at the Patent Office until it to is obsolete. As of the end of Fiscal Year 2008 there are 1,208,076 patent applications still pending at the Patent Office,..(more)