The United States Congress’ failure to pass a budget for the government by the end of the fiscal year on 30 September, which led to today’s shutdown, will have a variety of effects on the patent process, according to a new article.
According to Matt Levy, posting on the Computer & Communications Industry Association’s PatentProgress blog, the patent filing and court systems will keep functioning on reserves – at least for a few weeks.
But there is a big exception: the US International Trade Commission shut down today.
Read the PatentProgress blogpost here.
Meanwhile, for the bigger United Nations picture, a blogger following the UN in New York said there would be little impact in the short term.
See the UN Dispatch blog here.
Basically, the question gets more complicated the longer a budget is not approved.
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