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USPTO Supports Post Grant Aspects of S.515
Yesterday, the Dept of Commerce released their position paper on certain aspects of the proposed patent reform legislation. The paper outlines economic justifications for post grant review, citing the well known inefficiencies and cost of patent litigation. Interestingly, the paper points out that post grant review is expected to be 50-100 times cheaper than patent litigation.
Previously I discussed the potential of patent reform legislation to supplant traditional patent litigation. There is significant question in my mind on how the USPTO, based on current resources, can quickly and effectively transform from the current examiner based reexamination model to a system managed by the newly labeled Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
With the expanded role of discovery practices provided by the post grant proposals, statutory time line (12-18 months), and oral hearings it seems to me that the legislative proposals cannot plausibly Read the rest of this entry »
