I am predicting that US patent grants will fall in Fiscal Year 2015. The chart above shows that the expected numbers through September 2015 will likely be slightly below the all-time high of 300,000+ utility patents issued in FY2014. The expected return of 298,000 is only 2% below 2014 numbers but remains almost double the output throughout the first decade of this millennium. For each of the past five years, the USPTO has set a new record for number of patents granted.
At the most recent PPAC meeting, the USPTO also predicted a fall in utility patent application filings of about 2% for FY2015.
* The data above goes through May 26, 2015 – just about 2/3 of the way through FY2015.
MM, tidal wave of PTO incompetence
This observation is so transparently true that it is remarkable that people would consider the patent office’s own quality measures, which only measures quality of process, relevant to the ultimate performance of director Kappos and his follow-on deputy directors.
Corporations have boards of directors who keep their eyes on the ultimate goal – making sure that the stockholders are well treated. They would not be fooled by executives who measured internal processes and gave themselves bonuses for jobs well done when the corporation as a whole was failing to do its job. But that is what the PTO is. A corporation as a whole that is failing to do its job.
Hopefully our new director knows that the ultimate product of the patent office is what is important, not the process itself.
Re: “[Corporate directors] would not be fooled by executives who measured internal processes and gave themselves bonuses for jobs well done when the corporation as a whole was failing to do its job.”
Actually Ned, that does happen surprisingly often in large companies.
It only took five years (and a million junky patents) for the combined efforts of the Supreme Court and the PTO to find the brake for Kappos’ runaway train. Yay!
The bigger question is whether this data point heralds a trend towards a more sane and sober patent system (following the lead of the Supreme Court and Congress) as opposed to a blip preceding yet another tidal wave of PTO incompetence. There’s still a lot of air to be released from bubble before the system returns to something resembling normal.
Comments are closed.