Patent Law

Examine This

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

While Jon Dudas, head of the USPTO, blames idiot inventors with their bad ideas and pathetic prosecutors pushing punk paper as the cause of the pendency problem, head of the European Patent Office Alison Brimelow blames the European Patent Office. How refreshing. "I am worried. You cannot pretend the patent system is maintaining its integrity if you are looking at global backlogs."

Brimelow said that running the Euro patent gauntlet should take 36 months, but often dragged on for four to five years, and some took over a decade.

Brimelow -

I note that people I talk to in the business of seeking patents are increasingly happy to speculate on whether the time has come for mutual recognition, a patent examined in one major institution should be recognised by another.

Brimlow notes that saying no to change is much easier. Americans have a serious not-invented-here kneejerk reaction to international harmonization. "In the end political disagreement are real disagreements and in the end you may have to live with the consequences of not agreeing," Brimelow bemoaned.

Source (worth reading): BBC.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on June 20, 2008 (boomark / email).