Patent Offices around the world are increasing their efforts to share work to reduce work duplication and decrease their backlogs.
In doing so, Patent Applicants should benefit from quicker and less costly prosecution. A recent article on this topic can be found in the National Law Journal, entitled “Global Patent Offices Increasingly Share the Work” and was written by patent attorneys John Nemazi and Michael Brodbine, of inovia‘s U.S. agent, Brooks Kushman.
Here they take an in-depth look at the PPH program and other efforts to reduce the backlog in the world’s busiest patent offices.
It’s good news that patent offices internationally are taking advantage of new work-sharing opportunities and thus improving efficiency in patent law. Also good news is that, domestically, the USPTO is taking taking the work-sharing effort to heart and, to that end, moving toward opening satellite offices, in Detroit and elsewhere. This move is bound to help reduce the backlog and, hopefully, help prop up Detroit’s sagging economy.