By Christopher P. Singer --
In a November 9, 2007 press release, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that the European Patent Office (EPO), the Japan Patent Office (JPO), and the USPTO signed a memorandum of understanding that is designed to address the global workload challenges arising from the growth and complexity of patent applications worldwide. Several of the specific topics addressed in the memorandum include efforts to (a) coordinate work sharing; (b) develop a means to improve quality of applications; (c) coordinate electronic business developments; (d) harmonize or standardize search strategies, tools and procedures; and (e) promote dissemination of patent information.
Relating to work sharing, the Offices are considering a pilot project that would similar to the Patent Prosecution Highway between the USPTO and the JPO, which will be permanently implemented in January 2008. Under this program, an applicant receiving a decision from either the JPO or the USPTO that at least one claim in an application is patentable can request that the other Office fast track the examination of the same claims in the corresponding application.
The Offices also agreed on a common application format (yet to be disclosed) which will allow applicants to prepare a single acceptable application format in each of the three Offices.
Certain aspects regarding the initiative to cooperate in examination include collaboration among examiners; development of comparative studies; development of uniform search guidelines; and exploration of use of common search tools, techniques, and resources; and continual collaboration after the development of products.
If, as this post suggests, there are "global workload challenges arising from the growth and complexity of patent applications worldwide" then such challenges can hardly be said to stem from US laws and rules (given that both the Japanese and European patent offices have very different rules from the US, and are first-to-file systems. Thus, the attempts in both the USPTO and Congress to reduce the number of applications may be seen as, at best, a misguided treatment of symptoms, rather than a genuine cure for a supposed problem. Moreover, there is, in all likelihood, no problem at all, since the growth in the number of patent applications is not faster than the generally acknowledged growth of actual technical knowledge worldwide.
Posted by: Lawrence A. Husick | November 19, 2007 at 08:20 AM
Lawrence-
I think you have a legitimate point in that an application backlog is not unique to the USPTO. While I haven't heard anything recently about application backlog in the PCT, EP or JP Offices, it does seem clear that each of the Trilateral Offices are interested in developing programs that alleviate their individual burdens (such as the collaborative search and examination and the prosecution highway program). As reflected in a number of the other posts here, we are very interested in trying to come up with ideas (other than an expansive and radical new rules package) that would help to alleviate this perceived problem.
Posted by: Chris Singer | November 20, 2007 at 03:56 PM