January 18, 2002 Senator Patrick Leahy Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to express IEEE-USA's strong support of your efforts to make patent reexamination a viable administrative alternative to the high costs and uncertainties of patent litigation, and to prevent the diversion of fees collected for the U.S Patent and Trademark Office to fund other federal agencies. To this end, IEEE-USA supports S.1754, the Patent and Trademark Office Authorization Act of 2002, and in particular, Sections 2, 5 and 6. Section 2 prevents the diversion of fees collected for the U.S Patent and Trademark Office to other federal agencies through 2007 by authorizing an amount equal to the fees estimated for each year. IEEE-USA has a long-standing history of opposition to such diversions, since diverting funds to other agencies increases the time an application is pending because the USPTO cannot hire the examiners necessitated by the number of applications filed. For example, the last report by the USPTO showed that it is just sent the first examiner's action on some computer networks patent applications that were filed in October 1998 and on television applications that were filed in December 1997. This time period is in stark contrast to Congress' desire that a first office action be received by an applicant within 14 months, part of the term extension provisions of the patent reform legislation that you and Senator Hatch worked so hard to pass. If funds continue to be diverted, the resulting staff shortages will further lengthen patent issue dates and discourage innovators from filing patent applications since much of the value of the invention may have been taken by copiers. With our presently weakened economy, new technologies should be expedited as much as possible in order to decrease their time to market. Preventing the diversion of fees collected for the PTO is a simple and reasonable way to expedite patent issue dates. IEEE-USA also strongly supports Section 5 of the bill, which is identical to H.R.1866 that passed the House of Representatives on September 9, 2001. With the change to Section 5, it will not be possible for a patent applicant to overwhelm a patent examiner with prior art publications, simply to prohibit the correct consideration of that prior art in a later reexamination. In addition we are pleased to see that Section 5 retains the standard that requires a "substantial new question of patentability" be shown by the party requesting reexamination before the Patent Office orders a reexamination. Retention of this standard prevents parties from using frivolous reexamination requests as a way to make a patent ineffective. Similarly, we are pleased to see Section 6, which is identical to H.R.1886 that was also passed by the House of Representatives on September 9. This section removes the unbalanced treatment of patent owners and legitimate third-party reexamination requestors in appeals of the decisions of the Patent Office. Thank you for your consideration. Should you have questions or seek further information on our positions, please contact Bill Williams at 202-785-0017. Sincerely, LeEarl A. Bryant, P.E. (Also sent to Senator Hatch) | Top of Page | Policy Log | Public Policy Forum | IEEE-USA | Last Update:
18 January 2002 Copyright ©
2002, The
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. |
