The Atlantic Century II Report, by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, benchmarks Asian, EU, and US Innovation and Competitiveness. Click here to download the full report.
The last decade has seen an increasing realization by economists and policy makers alike that it is not so much the accumulation of more savings or capital but rather it is innovation - the improvement of existing or the creation of entirely new products, processes, services, and business or organizational models - that drives countries' long-run economic growth and improvements in standards of living. As a result, a fierce race for global innovation advantage has emerged, as countries compete intensely to realize the highest levels of innovation-based economic growth. To advance their competitiveness in this race, many countries have implemented thoughtful and constructive national innovation policies aimed at boosting the ability of companies and organizations in their economy to become more productive and innovative. Other countries are trying to win the race by deploying innovation mercantilist practices that distort global trade by trying to redirect the location of innovation (e.g., research and development) and production (e.g., manufacturing) activity to their shores at the expense of other countries. Many countries deploy a mix of both these "good" and "ugly" innovation policies, as the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) explained in The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Innovation Policy article for the December 2010 issue of bridges. But in light of this increased global focus on innovation, how are nations actually faring in the race for innovation advantage? In July 2011, ITIF, in conjunction with the European-American Business Council, released a report, The Atlantic Century II: Benchmarking EU & U.S. Innovation and Competitiveness, which provides a scorecard.
On September 16, President Obama signed into law the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (HR 1249; AIA), after Congress had passed the act with strong bipartisan support – a rather rare event these days on Capitol Hill. The law represents the most significant overhaul of the Patent Act since 1952 and seeks to help American entrepreneurs and businesses bring their inventions to market sooner, thus helping to accelerate the creation of urgently needed new jobs.
David Kappos
David Kappos, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), an agency of the US Department of Commerce, recently said at a conference that “despite ideological differences across political spectrums, the thirst for innovation is unquenchable.” Patents play a prominent role in the landscape of US innovation, with patent applications having tripled in the last two decades, from about 176,000 in 1990 to over 500,000 in 2011.
Some of the most significant aspects of the patent reform include:
• Shift from “First-to-Invent” to “First-to-File”
• Establishment of a fast-track option for processing patents within 12 months
• Additional resources for the USPTO to reduce the current patent backlog and to significantly reduce waiting time
• Reduction of court litigation by creating a post-patent review process and a patent-challenging system that provides alternatives to costly litigation
• Increasing the ability of American inventors to protect their intellectual property (IP) abroad via harmonization, which also makes it easier for entrepreneurs to simultaneously market products in the US and for export abroad.
bridges had the opportunity to speak with David Kappos, director of the USPTO, about the recent reform and its implications.
bridges: When you took office in 2009, you were faced with a backlog of more than 750,000 unexamined patent applications at USPTO. Reducing this backlog was one of the goals you set for the agency. How much have you progressed so far, and which other organizational reform measures have you implemented to date?
David Kappos:
Thanks for giving me this chance to address your readers across Europe and around the world. The global patent community holds the key to unleashing technology’s full potential.
Since the beginning of my tenure, we’ve pushed for a variety of measures to reduce the backlog in patent applications. Our efforts have been yielding fruit, as the patent backlog has been reduced from over 750,000 patent applications when I took office to under 670,000 at the end of October 2011, despite a 4 percent increase in filings last year.
Examiner hiring is a critical part of our efforts. Patent applications have risen significantly over the last decade without hiring keeping pace. Over the past two years we’ve hired 1,116 examiners and plan to add another thousand or more this year.
But hiring alone is not enough. The USPTO has also given all of its patent examiners detailedinterview training to improve communication between applicants and examiners and to encourage examiners to hold interviews earlier in the application process so that issues can be identified in the front end of reviewing an application. This not only encourages applicants and the examiners to engage in a stronger dialogue, which improves the understanding of a patent application, but the interview training has expanded the examining corps knowledge of procedural and legal topics. By encouraging a more open dialogue, the quality and efficiency of examination has improved.
We also instituted the Clearing the Oldest Patent Applications (COPA) program to act on the oldest applications sitting in the backlog. Of 312,759 applications that had been in the pipeline for 16 months or longer, 239,346 applications (77 percent) have been completed through the COPA effort. This puts the USPTO on track to meet our goal of guaranteeing a first action on all applications within 10 months by 2015.
We will continue to push aggressively to reduce the backlog even further in order to unlock the untold number of jobs and innovations idling in the pipeline.
