Hiring Freeze At USPTO Concerns Industry Groups

By Kim Treanor for Intellectual Property Watch

Members of the United States innovator business community have delivered a letter to President Trump requesting that the US Patent and Trademark Office be exempt from the federal hiring freeze announced in January.

The 5 April letter [pdf] was signed by nearly two dozen organisations and other entities, including the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the Innovation Alliance, the Alliance of US Startups & Inventors for Jobs, Medical Device Manufacturers Association, Licensing Executives Society, IEEE-USA, and the National Venture Capital Association.

The signers argued that the USPTO is not dependent on taxpayer funding, and that the patent fees which it collects in fact provide a source of revenue to the federal government.

The letter also raises concern that the hiring freeze will cause the US to fall behind other countries in granting patents. The letter states that the US patent system [corrected] has fallen from #1 to #10 in its ranking by the US Chamber of Commerce Global Intellectual Property Center, and that China’s patent office is issuing patents faster than the United States.

They request that the USPTO be permitted to hire new examiners to prevent their patent issuance rate from falling even further behind.

Kim Treanor is an intern at Intellectual Property Watch and a student in the graduate program of International Affairs at the New School in New York, where she studies development, trade and public health.