‘Innovation embassy’ opens
Office to function as smooth exchange of ideas between inventors and patent examiners
SAN JOSE — It’s come a long way from its two-century-old roots, of patent applications stored in shoeboxes, approved by the U.S. Secretary of State and protecting mostly innovations in flour refining, candle making and whiskey production.
On Thursday, U.S. Patent and Trademark officials proudly unveiled their office of the hightech present, the sleek, modern Silicon Valley Regional Office tucked into San Jose City Hall. The modern, thought- fully designed quarters will offer start-ups video conferencing with patent examiners, assistance to inventors and entrepreneurs, and virtual access to review judges.
The $18.2 million office also will be “an embassy of innovation,” and a twoway exchange of ideas and information, said Michelle K. Lee, under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Along with its three sister regional offices, it is intended to reduce the backlog of unexamined patent applications — al- ready reduced 25 percent since its high in 2009, Lee said. The office’s goal is for a 20-month turnaround.
The office will draw on the expertise and resources of the high-tech community to improve
its services and compete in the perpetual marathon of remaining technically current, enabling its reviewers and judges to distinguish between groundbreaking innovation and old-hat discoveries in everything from electronics to pharmaceuticals to communications.
But the office caters not only to inventors on the arcane scientific edge. Lee and other officials also envision it as extending a hand to the public to make accessible the world of technology. Visitors walking into the Patent and Trademark Office’s South Fourth Street public entrance will see on the wall faces of 14 local innovators — recognizable ones like Walt Disney, vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, as well as those less familiar to the general public, like Thomas Fogarty, holder of about 80 patents, including the balloon catheter for removing blood clots. That device is created with saving 50 million limbs or lives, said Commissioner for Patents Drew Hirshfeld.
With Silicon Valley generating 1,000 patent applications each month, San Jose may have seemed the obvious choice for a satellite patent office. But the local congressional delegation, along with other California lawmakers, had to lean hard to secure an office near what many consider the nation’s heart of innovation.
“I was surprised that the first satellite patent office went to Detroit,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, who led the congressional charge, said. “Go figure.”
Denver, which opened last year, and Dallas, opening in a month, are the two other regional offices.
The San Jose office will improve patent quality, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday. The office’s 120 examiners and judges, he said, will have a better understanding of what’s going on outside the Beltway.
On Monday, the office will begin training the first 20 patent examiners, and is looking for more candidates. Those interested in working to distinguish and protect cutting-edge discoveries need an undergraduate degree in a technical subject, and possibly a law degree as well, Lee said.
“We look forward to tapping into the really rich, diverse talent of this area,” she said.
While those hired here will have technical expertise, that’s not to say that most local applications will be heard in San Jose. Applications still we be filed online, and parceled out among the Patent Office’s 8,000 patent examiners, most located in headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, and the rest scattered among satellite offices. But the San Jose office’s features that allow applicants to inquire, consult and appeal via computer and video conference will eliminate the need for inventors and company officials to fly to Washington, D.C., to talk face-to-face with the official reviewing their applications.
The office also offers hearing rooms for appeals, an option Congress created in 2011 — in the same legislation mandating regional offices — that offers a cheaper and faster alternative to patent litigation.
From its original estimate, the cost of the new office tripled, to cover relocating San Jose workers and retrofitting the city space to Patent Office specifications. Lofgren said the federal government will recoup its cost — roughly $13 million — in patent and trademark fees.
San Jose officials, who invested about $5 million of the office’s costs (a sum that will be recouped in seven years of rent payments), are hoping that the Patent Office, with its 120 employees, stream of visitors and perhaps attorneys seeking to locate nearby, will provide a boost to downtown.
And it may have other benefits, creating a synergy in San Jose. It could, Mayor Sam Liccardo said, “unleash the inner geek in us.”