(USPTO.gov)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released more details of its program that lets patent applicants choose the speed at which their application is processed. The program consists of three tracks, with higher fees charged for faster patent processing.
USPTO plans to publish tomorrow (4 February) in the Federal Register a notice of the program’s Track One, which will give applicants the opportunity for prioritized examination of a patent within 12 months of its filing date for a proposed fee of $4,000. The comment period will close 30 days after the Federal Register notice is published.
The proposed Track One will:
- Charge $4,000 for each application, to recover the full cost of resources necessary to prevent the delay of other, non-prioritized applications)
- Limit the number of claims to four independent claims and 30 total claims
- Require application filing through the USPTOs electronic filing system (EFS-Web)
During the program’s first year, the USPTO plans to limit the number of applications in the program to 10,000 to ensure that the USPTO can meet the 12-month goal.
For smaller companies and organizations filing patents, the USPTO says it plans to offer a 50 percent discount on any filing fee associated with Track One, as it does with many other standard processing fees.
Read more: USA, EU, Japan Patent Offices Vow To Improve Work Sharing
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There are three problems. 1: The USPTO isn’t processing patent applications fast enough, and now faces a backlog of about 736K applications. 2: The USPTO isn’t covering its costs. The standard fee is ~$1,000, but it costs USPTO about $3,530 to process a patent. 3. Less than half of the applications actually *receive* a patent. So the American taxpayers paid over $1B to have USPTO analyze applications for innovations that weren’t patentable. In short our taxes pay for the over-burdened USPTO, while viable innovations are being delayed from adding to the economy. $4K to expedite?! Frankly, that should be the *standard* fee, and USPTO should charge $8-$10K to expedite. Plus they should pay their examiners more. (You can read more about this argument at Fuentek’s intellectual property management blog.) http://bit.ly/gYCPXD
[…] Read more: USPTO Gives Details of New Expedited Review Process […]