According to the recently uploaded article THE HILLS , we come to know about the recent status of the USA Patent and Trademark Office since the last 12 years of their up growth , the American inventors have invested a huge sum of money for their inventions but were not given such royal ethics rather termed as the patent trolls which was worthless for the public domains and regarded as a patent litigation case. The US patent agency also has to compensate huge sums for their nation’s welfare and the litigation over imposed to them .This got Congress’ bipartisan attention to “save U.S. businesses from extortionists.”
The problems so came forth was not only based on the patent litigation process; but it also resulted in the ranking of the US patent office in the 10th position by the US chamber of commerce. But the steps and the preventive measured overtaken by the government were in the list of failure only and no such upgrading effects were seen over the US patent system and moreover it only costed the amount of money investments for over comings the patent trolls. The bold steps were taken by the Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) who were responsible for the formation of the STRONGER Patents Act (S.1390) which was prepared for the repair of the technology of the US patent system.The STRONGER Patents Act is not perfect but it contains many good ideas to begin healing the U.S. patent system.In the interim, inventors and U.S. companies need to re-evaluate their IP protection strategy. The following recommendations are some ways to hedge against the continued degradation of the U.S. patent system.
How to overcome the degradation of US patent system ?
Here are the list of steps which is taken for the upgradation of the US patent system and its welfare comparison but the comparative measures as taken where not so very effective but had some impact on the US patent system :-
Re-evaluation of international protection – the US patent agency showed more interest on the international strategy of protection of IP laws , though it was not such an effectful point but in acknowledgement the positional aspects of the patent office in its ranking 10th from the leading sector. For example the chinese government is working more upon the innovation ideas rather than manufacturing products and is also working for full protection of infringing the rights of the inventors and thus expected more compensation and punishment charges in greater amount than that of the US patent system which is doing the opposite.
Evaluation of the current portfolio – the portfolio must be of current use of innovation which could be readily used in the upcoming 10 years so that it could not be so easy to challenge for the IPR rights. For example patenting new softwares and business method technologies should be given more stress on. Before filing to the government through counselling should be performed by the supervisor for instance-Considering ex parte reexamination for valuable, but susceptible, patents.
More Attention on the key assets – in the fear of the rejection people or the inventors do not spend more values for search and exploration of the key aspects which is a wrong approach, more attention and more investments should be imposed by the inventors for their invention for making searches like prior art searches and draft applications/claims that can withstand an IPR petition .
Hiring the best firms – the more investments should be done for choosing the correct counsel for checking the application thoroughly before filing so that less rejections and more innovative ideas come across the patent agency for filing . this will create 20-30% less troll filing procedure.
Hike in the ex-parte appeals – the PTAB has shown its effort for lowering down the inventory of ex-parte appeals within 2 years.The APJ’s who decide appeals are also the same APJ’s that decide IPR’s. Although there is no deference given to patents that issue after a successful appeal, I would prefer an indication of the PTAB’s view early in the patent life cycle for better to lose on appeal than in an IPR petitions.
Choose the right IPR counsel – the invention so proposed should be innovative enough and also a point of novelty should be present so that the IPR infringement case and the litigational procedures are less the PTAB judges are looking for such kind of art and there are actually looking for such kind of inventions
Conclusion
From the above discussion we come to the conclusion that the current scenario of the USPTO is very low and moreover it has to overcome its position from 10th all over the world to the leading block as it was 12 years back; it faced deterioration since these 12 years.The damage began with lobbying in the early 2000’s to address abusive patent litigation that was causing harm to U.S. companies. Congress, judges and the American public were told about unscrupulous litigants that were abusing what was characterized as a flawed patent system that did not issue perfect patents all the time.
