Although not clearly defined, [1] the backlog of unexamined patent applications consists, at one point in time, of all the patent applications that have been filed and still remain to be examined. The backlog was said to be 4.2 million worldwide in 2007, and in 2009 it reportedly continued to grow. [2] The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) alone had a backlog of ca. 700,000 patent applications in 2009. [3] By May 22, 2024 this number grew to 783,134 applications. [4]
The USPTO experienced problems with a backlog of unexamined applications, a shortage of skilled examiners and loss of capable examiners to the better-paying private sector since its earliest days in the 1800s. [5] The situation has been aggravating over the years.
In 2019 Beth Simone Noveck wrote:
The backlog has reached Borgesian proportions, and it feeds on itself: The patent examiner has less time to review more applications. Reviews become less rigorous. The easier the application process becomes, the more inventors apply. [6]
According to former U.S. federal judge Paul R. Michel, in an interview conducted in 2011, "delay is [...] the greatest problem with the [U.S.] patent system" and "[the USPTO] desperately needs thousands of additional examiners and new IT systems. Indeed, it has needed them for years." [7] The problem of patent backlog is not new. As early as 1940s the backlog of unexamined patent applications, the shortage of examiners [8] and insufficiency of the payments collected by the USPTO to cover its expenses [9] were recognized as persistent USPTO's problems.
A high attrition rate among patent examiners also contributes to the backlog:
The resources-pinch that fee diversion puts on the USPTO requires examiners work at a feverish pace in processing applications. This undoubtedly contributes to the high rate of attrition seen at the USPTO... The USPTO, aside from just needing examiners, needs experienced examiners. [10]
A study published in 2019 found that USPTO examiners spend on average only 19 hours on each patent application. This time includes reading it, searching prior art, comparing the two, writing office actions, replying to applicants’ counter-arguments, and, often, conducting interviews with applicants and their attorneys. At the same time the voluminosity of (the number of words in) patent applications keeps increasing due to legislative and judicial changes that demand greater disclosure. [11] A study of 10,000 patent applications filed with the USPTO in January 2002 found that the grant rate of individual examiners increases with the length of their tenure. More experienced examiners also cite fewer prior art references. [12] Another study examined a sample of patent families that had applications allowed by the USPTO and rejected by the European Patent Office (EPO), and concluded that more experienced US examiners are more likely to allow such undeserving applications than novice examiners. [11]
A study published in 2021 disputed earlier findings that more experienced USPTO examiners are less scrupulous. [13] Instead, the authors claim that more experienced examiners are more likely to use examiner's amendments, where the examiner writes her own claims that she is willing to allow, rather than simply rejecting the claims presented by the applicant. If the applicant accepts such examiner's amendments, the patent can be issued after the first Office action, thus reducing the patent pendency more than threefold.
The backlog problem exists in many other patent offices, although usually it is less severe than at the USPTO. For example, Alison Brimelow, former president of the EPO, stated that the "backlog of patent applications is counter-productive to legal certainty, and that has a negative effect on the innovation process". [14] According to a 2010 study by London School of Economics, "the cost to the global economy of the delay in processing patent applications may be as much as £7.65 billion each year." [1] [15]
 | The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(May 2023) |
Only a small number of studies looked into the causes of the patent backlog at the USPTO. In 2014 Frakes and Wasserman [16] found that the examination fees paid by the applicants cover no more than 30% of the USPTO budget, since 1991 when the Agency became "almost entirely user-fee financed". In 2016 the USPTO estimated the average cost of examining a patent application at about $4,200. At the same time, the examination fee was only $1,600 for large entities; at $800 for small-entities status; and at $400 for micro-entities status. [17] In comparison, for the same application with 20 claims (i.e., with undiscounted $1,600 examination fee at the USPTO) the European Patent Office would charge about $5,000, and the Japanese Patent Office would charge about $2,000. [17]
In 2016 the USPTO collected ca. $880 million in patent examination fees, $274 million in patent issuance fees, $1,214 million in patent renewal fees, and $700 million in other fees such as late payment fees, extra claim fees, etc. Thus, examination fees account for only 30 percent of the Patent Office’s budget, and they fail to cover its actual costs to examine the applications. [17]
On top of this, the USPTO, as the only federal agency that actually generates revenue to be self-sufficient, has been a subject of fee diversion by the US Congress.
Instead of allowing the USPTO to keep and utilize all of the fees that it collects, Congress has, through its annual appropriations process, diverted significant amounts of money from the USPTO to other, unrelated federal programs." Between 1990 and 2011, "the Congress has diverted some $800 million USPTO fees... In April 2011, Congress announced appropriations for the remaining five months of FY2011 that would result in $100 million in USPTO fees being diverted to other federal programs". [10]
The "back end" funding scheme (i.e., mostly from maintenance and issuance fees, rather than from "front end" examination fees) and the revenue diversion, creates a financial imbalance at the USPTO. In response to this challenge, more experienced examiners tend to spend less time on the examination, to cite fewer references, to allow (rather than reject) patent applications, and to extend preferential examination-queuing treatment to those technologies that cost the Agency the least to examine.” [18]
Nevertheless, the USPTO budget remains constrained, and does not allow for hiring more examiners to clear up the backlog. [19]
| The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(May 2023) |
In their 2017 study, Frakes and Wasserman argued, [17] that the patent backlog problem cannot be solved without increasing USPTO's revenues. More specifically, they proposed the following 3 changes:
The authors argued, that:
Because the actual fees paid to the Patent Office for the examination of a patent application are a fraction of the overall cost of securing a patent (which includes attorney fees), there is reason to believe that even a two-fold or three-fold increase in examination fees will not substantially impede access to the U.S. patent system." [17]
However, the authors also emphasized, that implementation of these measures would require legislative changes by the US Congress.
In the meantime, the USPTO has been trying to implement alternative methods of expediting patent examination and of increasing its budget. The most effective USPTO practice of raising its revenues takes advantage of the lack of unity of invention definition in the US patent law, and of non-judicable nature of examiner's restriction requirement to split original application into numerous divisionals (each of these divisionals charges a separate set fees, even though the content(text) of each application in the family, that the examiner reads, is the same).
Another (and much less effective in practice) approach comprises collaboration between different patent offices, that examine applications from the same patent family. For example, Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) was set up in 2006, in order to avoid the duplication of search and examination work. Also, several national patent offices, including USPTO, implemented programs for prioritized examination of patent applications in narrow categories or for patents applied by small firms. Some of these programs have been found to benefit small firms in terms of patent citations and quality; however, possibly because of a higher market value, such prioritized patents were found to be more likely litigated later. [20]
However, many patent applicants can sometimes prefer a lengthy 'patent pending' period and the legal uncertainty that it brings. [21] Also, since May 29, 2000, the USPTO has the policy to allow for a patent term extension beyond 20 years from the non-provisional priority date in cases when it takes the Office more than 3 years to issue a patent. [22] Such policy encourages applicants not to use or demand accelerated examinations, as the term extension is added to the end of the patent life, i.e., when the patent is likely to be the most valuable (high sales are achieved).
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention. In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce their rights.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexandria, Virginia, after a 2005 move from the Crystal City area of neighboring Arlington, Virginia.
Prior art is a concept in patent law used to determine the patentability of an invention, in particular whether an invention meets the novelty and the inventive step or non-obviousness criteria for patentability. In most systems of patent law, prior art is generally defined as anything that is made available, or disclosed, to the public that might be relevant to a patent's claim before the effective filing date of a patent application for an invention. However, notable differences exist in how prior art is specifically defined under different national, regional, and international patent systems.
A patent attorney is an attorney who has the specialized qualifications necessary for representing clients in obtaining patents and acting in all matters and procedures relating to patent law and practice, such as filing patent applications and oppositions to granted patents.
A patent examiner is an employee, usually a civil servant with a scientific or engineering background, working at a patent office.
Under United States patent law, a continuing patent application is a patent application that follows, and claims priority to, an earlier-filed patent application. A continuing patent application may be one of three types: a continuation, divisional, or continuation-in-part. Although continuation and continuation-in-part applications are generally available in the U.S. only, divisional patent applications are also available in other countries, as such availability is required under Article 4G of the Paris Convention.
Patent prosecution describes the interaction between applicants and their representatives, and a patent office with regard to a patent, or an application for a patent. Broadly, patent prosecution can be split into pre-grant prosecution, which involves arguing before, and sometimes negotiation with, a patent office for the grant of a patent, and post-grant prosecution, which involves issues such as post-grant amendment and opposition.
In most patent laws, unity of invention is a formal administrative requirement that must be met for a patent application to proceed to grant. An issued patent can claim only one invention or a group of closely related inventions. The purpose of this requirement is administrative as well as financial. The requirement serves to preclude the possibility of filing one patent application for several inventions, while paying only one set of fees. Unity of invention also makes the classification of patent documents easier.
Under United States patent law, a provisional application is a legal document filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), that establishes an early filing date, but does not mature into an issued patent unless the applicant files a regular non-provisional patent application within one year. There is no such thing as a "provisional patent".
In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art, often through hardball legal tactics Patent trolls often do not manufacture products or supply services based upon the patents in question. However, some entities, which do not practice their asserted patent, may not be considered "patent trolls", when they license their patented technologies on reasonable terms in advance.
Maintenance fees or renewal fees are fees paid to maintain a granted patent in force. Some patent laws require the payment of maintenance fees for pending patent applications. Not all patent laws require the payment of maintenance fees and different laws provide different regulations concerning not only the amount payable but also the regularity of the payments. In countries where maintenance fees are to be paid annually, they are sometimes called patent annuities.
The Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) is published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for use by patent attorneys and agents and patent examiners. It describes all of the laws and regulations that must be followed in the examination of U.S. patent applications, and articulates their application to an enormous variety of different situations. The MPEP is based on Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which derives its authority from Title 35 of the United States Code, as well as on case law arising under those titles. The first version of the MPEP was published in 1920 by the Patent and Trademark Office Society.
A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and related correspondence. It is the combination of the document and its processing within the administrative and legal framework of the patent office.
This is a list of legal terms relating to patents and patent law. A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention claimed therein, but a territorial right to exclude others from commercially exploiting the invention, granted to an inventor or their successor in rights in exchange to a public disclosure of the invention.
The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks(CGPDTM) generally known as the Indian Patent Office, is an agency under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade which administers the Indian law of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks.
In the United States, an Office action is a document written by an examiner in a patent or trademark examination procedure and mailed to an applicant for a patent or trademark. The expression is used in many jurisdictions.
The involvement of the public in patent examination is used in some forms to help identifying relevant prior art and, more generally, to help assessing whether patent applications and inventions meet the requirements of patent law, such as novelty, inventive step or non-obviousness, and sufficiency of disclosure.
The Peer To Patent project is an initiative that seeks to assist patent offices in improving patent quality by gathering public input in a structured, productive manner. Peer To Patent is the first social-software project directly linked to decision-making by the federal government.
The Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA) is a United States federal statute that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on September 16, 2011. The law represents the most significant legislative change to the U.S. patent system since the Patent Act of 1952 and closely resembles previously proposed legislation in the Senate in its previous session.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to patents: