A patent improvement
PATENT examiners, who scrutinise applications for patents and determine whether they ought to be granted or not, are used to poring over diagrams of complicated contraptions. But now the patent system itself, just as complex in its own way, is under increasing scrutiny.
The number of applications has soared in recent years, but patent offices have been unable to keep up—resulting in huge backlogs and lengthy delays. Standards have slipped and in America the number of lawsuits over contested patents has shot up (see chart). In an attempt to fix these problems, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Britain’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and the European Patent Office are evaluating a radical change: opening the process up to internet-based.