US Patent Office Delaying Technology Protection

Mequon, WI, April 17, 2008 – Telaric Ideas releases its tabulation of the time it takes to get a patent.

The U.S. patent system has been the envy of the world with over 7,300,000 utility patents published since 1836. A patent when published provides critical protection for new innovations. However, our prized system has been crumbling for the past 15 years.

One critical measure is the ever increasing time between when a patent is submitted and when it is published (or even rejected) by the patent office. A patent that takes over 7 years to be published may be nearly obsolete - yet this is happening more and more. For many technologies today after 7-8 years, the next set of innovation displaces it – rendering a patent meaningless.

Contrary to popular belief, while a patent is pending the inventor has no special protection. This is because the patent may be rejected or modified by the patent office and in some cases the patent may be abandoned by the inventor.

While pending it is generally available for anyone to review it online (see http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html). The Internet makes our newest technologies available to all our foreign competitors to copy and sell abroad and in the US. Only when a patent is published are competitors obliged to be careful of infringing its claims.

Inventors are generally granted 20 years of protection from the date a patent is filed – not the date it is approved and published. In a sense a patent continuously depreciates while waiting for it to be approved. So every year that goes by waiting for approval, a patent losses more value.

Telaric Ideas examined every utility patent published by the U.S. patent office in the first 12 weeks of 2008 (33104 patents). The time between when a patent is published and when it was submitted was determined. Similarly, the same was done for every patent that was published in all of 2003, 1998, and 1993.

The current average time between applying and having a patent published is now 3.5 years up from 2.3 in 2003, 2.1 years in 1998, and 1.6 years in 1993. Extrapolating to 2013 the average time will increase to 4.3 years or more. The 25% of patents that were published in the shortest period of time now take on average 1.7 years to be published, up from 1.1 years in 2003.

While, these two increases are alarming, there is a greater source of concern. The 1/4th of patents that took the longest to be published, now take an average of 5.5 years. This is up from 3.9 years in 2003, 3.2 years in 1998, and 2.8 years in 1993. The longest to be published 1/8th of patents took a disturbing average of over 6.3 years.

It is estimated that 1/8th of patents with the longest waits for approval 5 years from now will take over on average over 8 years. Many companies and inventors will find themselves harmed by disclosing their new ideas to the patent office; giving competitors many years to review, copy, use, or improve on these great new innovations.

While inventors can also be responsible for a certain degree of the delays, most companies are eager to get their patents approved as quickly as possible. It is felt that the delays due to inventors and companies have not have increased substantially from 2003 or even 1993.

The US patent office is struggling to keep up with 200,000 new applications each year and it needs additional funding. However, it is not entirely the patent office that is at fault. Senator Orin Hatch has reported over $750 million, of the fees charged by the patent office in recent years to process patents, has been diverted for other government uses. The fees to keep the patent office the best in the world have been paid, but taking them away undermines America and its most precious innovations.

The Senate is considering new changes to the patent laws. However, it should not alter the current system, creating new hurdles and significant delays for innovative Wisconsin companies to overcome in order get the patents they need. Instead, the Congress first needs to give back to U.S patent office the fees it collects to do its current job.

The U.S. patent system has deteriorated and for a very substantial number of applications possibly becoming a waste of time. We cannot put American companies at a significant disadvantage to foreign competitors who are eager to copy the technology we develop. We are allowing our future and the protection of American companies’ greatest ideas to decay.

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