U. S. Patent and Trademark Office: Hiring Efforts are Not Sufficient to Reduce the Patent Application Backlog

The Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) grants patents for new ideas and innovations. Increases in the vol. and complexity of patent applications (PA) have extended the time for processing them. Concerns continue about the agency¿s efforts to attract and retain qualified patent examiners (PE) who can help reduce the growing backlog of unexamined PA. In 2007, a report was issued on: (1) USPTO¿s process for making its annual hiring est. and the relationships of these est. to the PA backlog; (2) the extent to which PE hiring has been offset by attrition, and the factors that may contribute to this attrition; and (3) the extent to which USPTO¿s retention efforts align with PE¿s reasons for staying with the agency. This testimony is based on a survey of 1,420 PE. Ill.