Whoever framed the issues that resulted in The Patent Reform Act of 2005 got it wrong, and the players in the patent game will suffer for it, not so much for what is might be done to the system, as what probably won't be done.

Two patent reforms are imperative for improving the U.S. patent system:

1) Statutorily assure that the patent office gets all the revenues from the fees that it collects. This would allow sufficient planning and allocation of resources so that the patent office could properly examine applications. Dennis Crouch crunched numbers on examination delay by the patent office, and guess what - patent examiners are chronically overworked. We don't need to change the examination process, we just need to let it work without taxing examiners into a stupor of assembly-line processing.

2) Follow Japan's lead with a national patent court. Peter Zura's July 19, 2005 entry describes the forum shopping that goes on for patent cases in this country. As if patent litigation is supposed to be like shopping at a bazaar; what a pathetic comment on our judicial system. Currently the Eastern District of Texas is popular, because the Honorable Judge T. John Ward, ruling the roost there, knows how to run a district court for patent cases. How about letting T. John take care of business on the U.S. Federal Circuit for Intellectual Property?! Getting it right at the first judicial level would certainly, over time, lessen the case load for the Court of Appeals (CAFC). Right now U.S. District Courts too often suffer reversals and remands on appeal because of the lack of specialization required to properly handle patent cases at the district level; the problem is an inherent systemic deficiency.