What plagues the PTO is easy to diagnose. Despite protests to the contrary, evidence suggests that the patent side of the house is buried beneath an avalanche of work, lacks the resources to dig its way out, and is at odds with its constituents. And what’s at stake for the next person charged with curing these ills is the effective operation of the country’s patent system so that inventors get timely protection for their intellectual property.
The PTO’s biggest problem is probably capacity, or, rather, lack thereof. While the 2008 average time for first-action pendency of 25.6 months was actually below the target figure of 26.9 months, that was still 88 percent longer than fiscal 2000’s 13.6 months. Meanwhile, total average pendency reached 32.2 months last year, an increase of almost 29 percent from 25 months in 2000.
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