Aug. 11--President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed an authorization for an additional $129 million to reform operations at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, an agency that admits it has stifled American innovation and impeded the creation of millions of jobs by failing to keep up with a huge backlog of patent applications.
Despite its central role in safeguarding and promoting American innovation, the agency has long been neglected in Washington, where Congress siphoned its funding for many years in order to pay for unrelated federal projects. As a result, examiners were unable to keep pace with the volume and complexity of the applications they received.
As documented last year in a Journal Sentinel investigation, some 1.2 million applications were gathering dust at the Patent Office, a backlog the agency estimated could take until 2015 to get under control. Starting five years ago, it began rejecting patent applications at an unprecedented pace in an unsuccessful effort to catch up.
To read the full, original article click on this link: American Chronicle | New funding should help Patent Office deal with backlog
Author: John Schmid
