The U.S. Patent Backlog 195
coondoggie writes "Even with its increased hiring estimates of 1,200 patent examiners each year for the next 5 years, the US Patent and Trademark Office patent application backlog is expected to increase to over 1.3 million at the end of fiscal year 2011 the Government Accounting Office reported today. The USPTO has also estimated that if it were able to hire 2,000 patent examiners per year in fiscal year 2007 and each of the next 5 years, the backlog would continue to increase by about 260,000 applications, to 953,643 at the end of fiscal year 2011, the GAO said. Despite its recent increases in hiring, the agency has acknowledged that it cannot hire its way out of the backlog and is now focused on slowing the growth of the backlog instead of reducing it. This too is but one of the goals of the Patent Reform Act currently making the rounds in the US Senate."
Therefore (Score:5, Funny)
Pay me, bitches.
Re:Therefore (Score:5, Funny)
A possible solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:There is no real issue. Problem solved. (Score:3, Funny)
Patent requests: 400$ * 1,300,000 = +345,000,000$
RIAA support: 55,000,000
Physical infrastructure costs: 1 * 10,000,000 = -50,000,000
Execs: 2,000,000 * 7 = -35,000,000
Coordinators: 500,000 * 10 = -15,000,000
People who we don't know what they do (Management??): 80,000 * 300 = -24,000,000
Political bargaining: -35,000,000
Minimal patent examiners: - 35,000,000
Remaining funds: -as mush as you can convince people
In fact they are in dire need of financial support, for a government program they are barely scraping by.
Patent #1094398532 - One click approval (Score:3, Funny)
I'll license it back to them for a fee.
Wow (Score:2, Funny)
Re:God I want this Problem (Score:4, Funny)
If they start outsourcing to India, we'd probably see a lot of new inventions coming out of India
Re:why check them at all? (Score:1, Funny)
In other news, the courts are saying that cases are taking years before being processed, due to a sudden surge in patentcases.
Re:Therefore (Score:1, Funny)
I'll up you by one:
I hereby submit a patent to use computing and human resources technology to increase the speed of the patent process using the Internet.