A Patent System for the 21st Century (2004) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-8
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, strengthened the position of patent holders vis-à-vis alleged infringers domestically and internationally, relaxed antitrust constraints on the use of patents, and extended the reach of patenting upstream from commercial products to scientific research tools, materials, and discoveries. Continuing high rates of innovation suggest that the patent system is working well and does not require fundamental changes.
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In light of these strains, now is an opportune time to examine the system's performance and consider how it can continue to reinvent itself. In spite of its pervasive influence, patent policy for the last 50 years has been the preserve of practicing attorneys, judges, patent office administrators, and legally trained legislators.
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Moreover, case law recognizes limits to patenting, confining patents to inventions that can be expressed as products or methods and excluding patents on abstract ideas and phenomena of nature. Some, although not all, members of the committee are concerned that recent fairly abstract patents cross this indistinct line and have unwisely limited public access to ideas and techniques that are important to basic scientific research.
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There are, however, occasional cases of restricted access to foundational discoveries and to some diagnostic genetic tests. Universities have traditionally operated under an unwritten assumption that they would not be sued by patent holders for violating patents in the course of precommercial university research, but a ruling in 2002 by the U.S.
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Sixth Criterion: Greater integration of or reciprocity among the three major patent systems would reduce public and private transaction costs, facilitating trade, investment, and innovation. In spite of progress in harmonizing the U.S., European, and Japanese patent examination systems, important differences in standards and procedures remain, ensuring search and examination redundancy that imposes high costs on users and hampers market integration.
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The time, cost, and other characteristics of this proceeding should make it an attractive alternative to litigation to resolve patent validity questions both for private disputants and for federal district courts. The courts could more productively focus their attention on patent infringement issues if they were able to refer validity questions to an Open Review proceeding.
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From page 7... ...
To improve its performance the USPTO needs additional resources to hire and train additional examiners and fully implement a robust electronic processing capability. Further, the USPTO should create a strong multidisciplinary analytical capability to assess management practices and proposed changes, provide an early warning of new technologies being proposed for patenting, and conduct reliable, consistent, reputable quality reviews that address office-wide and individual examiner performance.
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From page 8... ...
The United States, Europe, and Japan should further harmonize patent examination procedures and standards to reduce redundancy in search and examination and eventually achieve mutual recognition of results. Differences that need reconciling include application priority ("first-to-invent" versus "first-inventorto-file")
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