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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) grants more than 300,000 patents each year. Some of those patent grants represent genuine new inventions, but many of them don’t. On average, patent examiners have about 18 hours to spend on each application. That’s not enough time to get it right.
Thousands of patents get issued each year that never should have been issued in the first place. This is a particular problem in software, which is a bad fit for the patent system. That’s why it’s so critical that we have a robust patent review system. It gives companies that get threatened over patents the opportunity to get a second, more in-depth review of a patent—without spending the millions of dollars that a jury trial can cost.
Our patent review system is ten years old now, and unfortunately patent trolls and other aggressive patent holders have learned to game the system. Unfortunately, the USPTO has let them get away with it. A recently introduced bill, the Restoring the America Invents Act (S. 2891) will close some of the loopholes that patent owners have used to dodge or weaken reviews.
Inter Partes Review
Congress recognized the need for such a system when it passed the 2011 America Invents Act, and created a review system called “inter partes review,” or IPR. The IPR process lets a particular department of the patent office, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), hold a quasi-judicial process in which they take a second look to decide if a patent really should have been granted in the first place.
The IPR system isn’t perfect, but the process has been a big improvement over the patent office’s previous review systems. Over the 10 years it’s been in operation, the PTAB has reviewed thousands of patents. In the majority of cases that have gone to a final decision, PTAB jud
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Read the original article: Our Patent Review System is Ten Years Old. It’s Time to Make It Stronger.