Patent reform in America will spur high-paying job creation and economic growth, claims a new paper by senior economic officials at the US Department of Commerce and the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Issued as the US Congress weighs patent legislation, the report found reform could reduce patent pendency by 40 percent. This is important, it adds, as timely patents help attract venture capital for innovative firms, which in turn provide high-salaried jobs and create the technologies that have fueled three-fourths of US growth since the 1940s. Also, it says new post-grant review procedures proposed in the reform will reduce the need for costly court challenges.
The report can be read in full here [pdf]. It was authored by Commerce Department Chief Economist Mark Doms, and USPTO External Affairs Administrator Arti Rai and Chief Economist Stuart Graham.
“This report is more evidence of what many of us have been saying for many years,” said Senator Patrick Leahy (Democrat, Vermont), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a lead author on the Patent Reform Act said in a press release.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association in a press release applauded the report’s recommendations on certain areas of patent reform, in particular highlighting the fact that it was “based upon a proper economic analysis as opposed to platitudes that crudely equate more patents with more innovation.”
[Update: US patent attorney and e-newsletter publisher Greg Aharonian has issued a scathing criticism of this report as offering overstated, unsubstantiated claims that are unworthy of proper economic analysis, including one assertion supported only by research “on file with the author.”]