Patent office plans to streamline operations, applications

WASHINGTON—With the backlog of patent applications growing, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) said it plans to streamline its operations to reduce patent examinations from an average of more than two years to18 months.

The patent office's five-year strategic plan calls for shifting labor-intensive portions of patent examinations to the private sector while automating much of the patent and trademark application process. If these and other changes are implemented, PTO director James Rogan said 2,500 fewer patent examiners would have to be hired, generating estimated savings of $500 million by 2008.

PTO currently has a backlog of 408,000 patent applications and expects to receive another 340,000 applications this year. The patent office announced last fall that it would hire as many as 500 electrical engineers this year to handle the growing number of patent applications for telecommunications and electronics inventions.

Rogan said a market-driven transformation of the agency is needed to relieve a U.S. patent application process that is "under siege."

The PTO plan would require Congress to enact a new fee structure for patents and trademarks. Rogan said most application fees would remain unchanged for now.

The agency funds most of its operations through patent applications fees. At the same time, it is looking for cost savings through staff cuts and greater use of automation such as electronic applications filing systems.

Last week, Rogan announced that as many as 135 trademark attorneys would be laid off after a steep drop in the number of U.S. trademark applications. The decline stems mostly from the drop off in new high-tech startups and products. The union representing PTO employees reportedly opposes the downsizing plans.

Rogan also stressed that the streamlining plan would also attempt to integrate PTO into a global intellectual property (IP) framework. Hence, the agency's 18-month goal for processing patent applications would also provide inventors with enforceable international IP rights.

"We will work both bilaterally and multilaterally with our partners to create a stronger, better coordinated and more streamlined framework for protecting intellectual property around the world," Rogan said.