Patent backlog clogs recovery Agency’s inability to keep pace undermines American innovation, competitiveness

Reposted from old blog.... 
Just say no. Sounds like a well-known political parties 'strategy'. Agency’s inability to keep pace undermines American innovation, competitiveness. And I can speak from personal experience. Since 2004, yes 2004 we had been pursing a patent on the most innovative 'drive-through' ever devised. We conceived, design and built it in conjunction with our diner of the 21st Century prototype we opened in 2004. We designed in energy delivery lanes (yes, planning for this since 2003) into our drive through. Turning many/all drive-through into electric and/or hydrogen distribution stations.   (Breeze-Thru™) our trademarked rebranding to go along with our reinvention of the traditional drive-through. The patent office wasted a lot of my time and money. Alot. No after no by the same guy who didn't get it. Who referred to completely unrelated patents. And when I heard that they the USPO had a strategy to reduce the number in Que by the no strategy - the B.S. came to light... 
Perry Andropolis Dir. of Innov. Andropolis Institute

_________________________________________By John Schmid and Ben Poston of the Journal Sentinel

First of two parts
Alexandria, Va. — On a campus of boxy office buildings nine miles outside Washington, D.C., some 6,300 patent examiners hold the nation's economic future in their hands.

The next Google. The next iPhone. The next Viagra.

All could be fueled by inventions awaiting the 20 years of protection afforded by a U.S. patent - if only the patent examiners could catch up.

But they can't. The federal system of granting patents to businesses and entrepreneurs has become overwhelmed by the growing volume and complexity of the applications it receives, creating a massive backlog that by its own reckoning could take at least six years to get under control, the Journal Sentinel has found.

Amid the worst downturn since the Great Depression, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office could be seen as a way to jump-start the economy. Instead, it sits on applications for years, placing inventors at risk of losing their ideas to savvy competitors at home and abroad.

link to full article....

second part 


Patents Pending | A Journal Sentinel Watchdog Report
Patent rejections soar as pressure on agency rises
Penalized for flawed approvals, examiners keep pace – and pay – by refusing applications

By John Schmid and Ben Poston of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Aug. 16, 2009
Madison — Issued in 1995, U.S. Patent No. 5,443,036 is titled “Method of Exercising a Cat.” If you move the light from a laser pointer around on the floor, it says, your cat will chase it.

That’s right — it’s patented.

Yet when medical professor Janet Mertz applied for a patent on a new diagnostic test for breast cancer in 2002, she waited five years for a ruling — and was rejected. The hormone-based test, developed and refined for more than a dozen years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was deemed too obvious to merit patent protection.