Patent law will cut backlog of applications, official says

There are 630,000 unexamined patent applications sitting on shelves at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Va., about double the suitable level, an executive with the agency said Wednesday.

But the office is in the process of implementing a 2011 patent law that should lower that number and streamline patent applications, Janet Gongola, patent reform coordinator at the federal office, said in Little Rock. Gongola spoke on patent changes at the Arkansas State Library.

That is one major reason that Congress passed the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act

in September, Gongola said in an interview before her presentation.

To help alleviate the backlog of applications, the patent office will hire 1,500 examiners this year and another 1,500 next year, Gongola said. And the office is upgrading its information technology system, she said.

The other primary reason for the law is to provide an alternative to patent litigation, a process that will be available next month.

“Litigation is extremely expensive and there is a long time between when a case is filed and when it reaches resolution,” Gongola said. “There will be three new types of trials before the patent office that will be held in lieu of district court litigation to challenge patent validity. The trials are required to be statutorily finished within one year. They also will be much cheaper than district court litigation.”

Joel Carter, a patent attorney for the Little Rock law firm of Quattlebaum, Grooms, Tull & Burrow, said the new law is less complicated for inventors.

It allows the first inventor to file for a patent to get that patent. The previous law awarded the patent to the first to invent something, Carter said. Firstto-file is the rule used in most countries.

So, if someone invents a product in January but does not file for a patent until March, and in February, someone else independently invents the same thing and files for a patent in February, the second inventor would receive the patent.

“It encourages an inventor to file for a patent faster,” Gongola said.

There will be a process to ferret out a thief who steals a patent idea, she said.

An inventor also can pay a higher fee to get his application expedited.

The fee is $4,800 but is reduced to $2,400 for a company with fewer than 500 employees, Gongola said. A prerequisite is that the patent must be filed online and the inventor can only be making a small number of patent claims.

“The patent office has a goal to turn the application around and give you a determination on patents within 12 months,” Gongola said. “But we’re actually beating our goal. Right now we’re [approving patents] in five months.”

To give inventors more options, the patent office also opened its first satellite office — in Detroit. It plans to open three more over the next few years — in Dallas, Denver and San Jose, Calif., Gongola said.

The patent office also has “nationwide examiners” who are trained in Alexandria but can work from their homes after that, Gongola said.

The Arkansas State Library, at 900 W. Capitol Ave. in Little Rock, is one of a national network of Patent and Trademark Resource Centers where the patent office’s database can be accessed.