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IBM plans ‘Inventor’s Forum’ to speed up US patent process

IBM plans ‘Inventor’s Forum’ to speed up US patent process

The move towards patent reform in the US gathered strength this week, as IBM, the nation’s biggest patent holder, announced on 11 January that it will develop an online ‘Inventor’s Forum’ designed to improve patent quality.

The forum, expected to launch in the next few months, will be a place where entrepreneurs and small-business owners can share ideas and proposals on how to improve the patenting process.

Marc Ehrlich, an attorney in IBM's patent portfolio management team, said that the US Patent and Trademark Office is overwhelmed by patent applications, many of which should not be granted because they are too obvious, broad or not new.

‘Even when the bad applications are weeded out, it takes time to sift through them’, he said.

According to the patent office, the agency reviewed 332,000 patent applications in fiscal 2006, the most it has ever examined. However, the agency actually received more than 440,000 applications in that time. That backlog occurred despite hiring more than 1,200 new patent examiners, and the agency plans to hire 1,000 more every year for the next five years.

‘Even so, the volume of applications will continue to outpace the agency's capacity to examine them,’ the agency said in a news release last month. The patent and trademark office ‘continues to look for ways, beyond hiring, to reduce the backlog while maintaining examination quality.’

IBM hopes some of its proposals can help stem the flood. It has also created a pilot program where experts in various fields will examine patent applications and pass along their comments to the examiners at the patent office.

‘Although the examiners will make the final decision’, Mr. Ehrlich said, ‘the input from experts will help them decide whether the application should be approved’.

This pilot program will also get under way in a few months time.

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