Patents
The July/August edition of Forbes Small Business has an important and interesting article that discusses the overloaded US patent system. The backlog of applications is now at 800,000!
At a nanotech conference a year or so ago, I heard a patent attorney say that there is such a huge log jam of nanotech-related applications, the wait time before you receive your first comments from the patent office is usually about 3 years.
That seems to be a correct assessment -- we filed for our initial patent in March 2005. Since then it has been assigned to a reviewer, but we have heard nothing from the patent office, except the notification that they received it.
There are some reforms that are in the works, apparently. A bill is aimed at improving the quality of patent applications. However, the FSB article says that the bill would make things more difficult for small businesses.
In particular, the issues seem to be changing the protection from "first to invent" to "first to file", and limiting the damages.
The article says big businesses generally support the bill while small businesses oppose it.
Check out the aricle online at www.fsb.com.
At a nanotech conference a year or so ago, I heard a patent attorney say that there is such a huge log jam of nanotech-related applications, the wait time before you receive your first comments from the patent office is usually about 3 years.
That seems to be a correct assessment -- we filed for our initial patent in March 2005. Since then it has been assigned to a reviewer, but we have heard nothing from the patent office, except the notification that they received it.
There are some reforms that are in the works, apparently. A bill is aimed at improving the quality of patent applications. However, the FSB article says that the bill would make things more difficult for small businesses.
In particular, the issues seem to be changing the protection from "first to invent" to "first to file", and limiting the damages.
The article says big businesses generally support the bill while small businesses oppose it.
Check out the aricle online at www.fsb.com.
