Independent patents applicants see ideas stolen due to backlog
By John Schmid of the Journal Sentinel
I have been waiting (was) 4 1/2 + years for the process..
Posted: Nov. 29, 2009
Mirk Buzdum and Dick "Cappy" Capstran, a pair of garage entrepreneurs in Milwaukee, know full well that their designs for drill bits and cutting tools are good.
"It's obvious that these technologies are valid, because people are stealing them and they're in production," Buzdum said.
But their anger isn't directed only at the multinational companies that they say are ripping off their ideas. A big part of the blame, they say, falls on the agency that is supposed to protect them and the rest of the nation's innovators: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The patent applications drafted by Buzdum and Capstran are among the 1.2 million applications pending at the agency - a backlog that was the subject of a Journal Sentinel investigation published in August. Hamstrung by a series of problems, including Congressional diversions of its funding since the early 1990s, the Patent Office has fallen hopelessly behind at a time when the technologies it protects ought to be reinvigorating the U.S. economy. And its efforts to catch up have only made matters worse, with the agency rejecting applications at one point at an unprecedented 60% rate - including many that were later proven to be worthy of patents.
Now, under new management, the agency has proposed allowing "small entity" companies with two or more pending applications to accelerate the examination of one of them - but only if the applicant will abandon all rights to another.
To the agency, it's a way to cut into the backlog.
Link to article
To Buzdum, it's like burning the furniture to keep warm.
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