WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law a major overhaul of the nation’s patent system to ease the way for inventors to bring their products to market.
“We can’t afford to drag our feet any longer,” he said.
Passed in a rare display of congressional bipartisanship, the America Invents Act is the first significant change in patent law since 1952. It has been hailed as a milestone that will spur innovation and create jobs.
The bill is meant to ensure that the patent office, facing a backlog of 1.2 million pending patents, has the money to expedite the application process. It takes an average of three years to get a patent approved. More than 700,000 applications have yet to be reviewed.
Q: Why are there so many applications sitting around the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office?
A: It’s primarily because of insufficient manpower and funding. The patent office doesn’t have enough examiners to keep up with the filings, which have increased slightly under Obama. The agency is funded entirely by fees, but Congress has tapped its funding stream over the years.
Q: How long typically until an application is reviewed?
A: Nearly three years, on average. Obama said inventor Thomas Edison’s application for the phonograph was approved in seven weeks.
Q: How will the America Invents Act make the process better?
A: In several ways. The agency will be able to set its own fees and, with congressional oversight, keep all the money it collects. Plans call for hiring between 1,500 and 2,000 examiners during the budget year ending Sept. 30, 2012. Congress currently sets the office’s annual budget, and the fees it can charge. David Kappos, the patent office director, told Congress that change would raise an additional $300 million, which could be used to increase staffing and upgrade computers and other information technology. Applicants also can pay extra for a faster review process that is supposed to cut the average wait to one year, down from three.
Q: What about the backlog?
A: Kappos said the changes could help cut that in half, to 350,000 applications.
Q: How soon will the changes take effect?
A: It depends. Some parts of the law take effect immediately. Other parts will require a year or 18 months.
Q: How is it that Democrats and Republicans were able to agree on overhauling the patent process when they can’t seem to agree on much of anything lately?
A: Both parties have long recognized that the patent system was inadequate to meet the needs of 21st-century innovators, and the groups pressing for change represent the entire political spectrum, from manufacturers and drug companies with ties to Republicans to high-tech companies and academics more often associated with Democrats.
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to an error by The Associated Press, Thomas Edison was listed as the patent holder for the photograph instead of the phonograph.
