Patent office aims to hire 950 new examiners

The chief of the Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday said that his agency will be able to hire 950 new examiners--a key step in helping reduce patent pendency, or the time it takes to issue patents--if Congress approves the Bush administration's proposed 21 percent funding increase for PTO.

Speaking at a Capitol Hill forum sponsored by the Congressional Economic Leadership Institute, PTO's James Rogan, a former California Republican member of Congress, said he wants to do better than simply keep pendency from rising. Although average patent pendency is currently 24 months, Rogan said it is expected to rise to 36 months by 2006 unless aggressive steps are taken.

Rogan said he wants to carefully reconsider a proposal designed to keep pendency from rising that PTO made last year in response to demands from Congress.

"The idea of spending five years and $1 billion just to be where we are today is not acceptable," he said, referring to last year's proposed changes. Instead, he said he would like to take steps to lower the pendency rate.

He also said the anticipated PTO consolidation from its 18 current locations in Arlington, Va., to Alexandria, Va., would help expedite the agency's workflow.

Rogan said the high pendency rate has hit the engineering and information technology communities harder than the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector.

"On the pharmaceutical side, pendency is not a problem," he said. "Most don't mind [the long waits] because they have to go through clinical trials and the Food and Drug Administration approval" process.

The Bush administration has proposed a $1.37 billion PTO budget for fiscal 2003. Instead of diverting existing patent fees to general appropriations--a practice undertaken by the former Bush and Clinton administrations--the new administration proposes a one-year surcharge designed to raise $207 million.

Of that sum, $162 million would be earmarked for homeland security and economic security, and $45 million would go to PTO. The surcharge would add 19 percent to the patent fee and 10 percent to the trademark fee.

Rogan also called patents and other forms of intellectual property the "lifeblood" of the information economy.

"At the end of the day, intellectual property is one of our great national resources," he said. "And we should not allow it to be stolen or subject to piracy any more than any form of property."