Members of United States innovators business community have delivered a letter to President Trump requesting that the US Patent and Trademark Office,be exempt from federal hiring freeze announced. The 5th april letter was signed by nearly two dozen organizations and other entities, including the Biotechnology Innovation Organisation, the innovation alliance, the alliance of US Startups and Inventors for jobs, Medical Device Manufacturer Association , licensing executive society , IEEE-USA, and the national venture capital association.
Fall in ranking of USPTO
The signers argued that the USPTO is not dependent on taxpayer funding and the Patent fees which it collects in fact provides source of revenue to federal government. The letter also raises concern that the hiring fees will cause the hiring freeze will cause the US to fall behind other countries in granting patents. The letter states that the USPTO has fallen from 1 to 10th rank, in its ranking done by US Chamber of Commerce Global Intellectual Property Centre, and that the China’s patent office is issuing patents faster than the US patent office. They request that the USPTO to be permitted to hire new examiner to prevent their patent issuance rate from falling even further behind.
They are arguing a hiring freeze would be advantageous to China, “ increasing the patent pendency rate by reducing the number of patent examiner’s will be a boon for our foreign competitors, slowing the creation of American jobs and advantaging China which is granting patent faster than the US. The United States should have been the best patent system in the world and not allowing USPTO to hire needed examiners will cause the US to fall far behind .