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| UK And US To Reduce Patent Backlogs |
by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The UK and US governments have agreed to develop an action plan for
reducing patent processing backlogs in both countries' patent offices.
David Lammy, UK Minister of State for Higher Education and
Intellectual Property (UK-IPO) and David Kappos, Director of the United
States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), committed both the UK-IPO
and the USPTO to develop a plan to optimize reuse of work on patent
applications that are filed jointly at the USPTO and the UK-IPO. To
this end, the offices will identify all areas of re-utilization
potential by the end of this calendar year, and pursue measures
designed to facilitate maximum reuse by building confidence in the work
done by each office.
According to a study by London Economics released on behalf of the
UK-IPO, the cost to the global economy of the delay in processing patent
applications may be as much as GBP7.6bn (USD11.44bn) each year and
prevents hi-tech businesses in sectors such as telecomms, aviation and engineering from getting to market as quickly as they otherwise could.
Lammy said: "If we are serious about economic recovery then we
cannot sit back and watch good ideas go to waste. I want to see an
international system that works efficiently to provide innovative
businesses with high quality patents in the timescales they need. The
UK is working hard to secure our competitive advantage in innovative,
high-growth sectors like advanced manufacturing, the life sciences,
low-carbon and others. Patents act as a short-term reward to
innovators, so that they offset the costs involved in developing their
ideas. I welcome the joint working that we have agreed with David
Kappos today to tackle this issue head on to reduce unnecessary
duplication of work and maintain quality between patent offices."
Kappos added: "Every quality patent application that sits on the
shelf represents jobs not created. For that reason, the USPTO has made
reduction of patent backlog our highest priority. At the USPTO, we have
already undertaken substantial reform of our system for processing
patent applications. Work-sharing is an important feature of this
reform. Thus far, however, our work-sharing efforts at the PTO have
largely been applicant driven and therefore dependent on whether
individual applicants know about, and appreciate, the clear benefits of
work-sharing. So I am particularly delighted that we are today
embracing with the UK an office-driven mechanism for re-utilization of
work."
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