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August 14, 2011

Snip

Hal Wegner predicts "The Leahy Smith America Invents Act is likely to be enacted this year." The icing on top of that rotten cake is "that there will nevertheless be a significant fee diversion that will occur later this year: This will occur as a result of the debt ceiling legislation that has created a 'Super Committee' to propose massive budget cuts." The wretched incompetence of the federal government spirals down. While the patent office has had years of sufficient funds, it has made little progress in streamlining its operations or improving the quality of examination. The coming consequence of the inevitable will be to provide a ready excuse for the PTO's performance - not enough funds to do a decent job. But not everything is going down. The BPAI backlog, already on a steep ascent owing to excremental examination, will reach liftoff velocity, as the chimera of patents as a spur to the economy slips further into the haze.

Posted by Patent Hawk at August 14, 2011 8:55 AM | The Patent Office