Japan - accelerated Patent examination

In a constructive step towards executing the idea of ‘accelerated examination’ for patent applications [as mentioned in a previous post], Japan, has leapfrogged in setting a benchmark. The Japan Patent Office which receives 420,000 applications annually, indeed has an uphill task of processing these applications in a timely and justified manner.

In a collaborative effort of usurping the negative attributes of a slow patent obtaining process, the Japanese Government has enacted the Expeditious Patent Examination Law in 2004. Since 2004, the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) has begun groundwork to achieve a waiting time for examination process to be the world’s shortest at 11 months in 2013, and towards realizing the ultimate goal of a zero period of waiting.

To deal with the massive amount of applications, the Japanese Patent Office expects to meet a target of hiring 500 examiners over a 5-year period to provide the pillars of support to the on-going process of accelerated examination. As a precedent of sorts, the JPO has granted the world’s fastest patent after a mere 17-day screening process. The patent deals with a process of detecting toxic metals in water, granted to Keio University.

PatentInc* Viewpoint:

Armed with the belief that a faster examination process will not only expedite the cascaded effects of translating patent applications into rightful patents, but also be the pivoting cause for more and more people/enterprises/RnD centres to acknowledge the patent protection route, the JPO has indeed begun to pave a way for building a faster, formidable patent docket.

[* PatentInc. – a proprietary outfit in the field of Intellectual Property, India]

Accelerated Examination at the USPTO: view and counterview

If,
we begin with the hypothesis that all endeavours (read as ‘inventors’) may be classified in the following formats:

- the absolute genuine; one having the premise that he understands the entire spectrum of the subject matter of his invention, its credibility, its genesis, its patentability and its subsequent conjecture in relation to the technological advance over the prior art;

- the discombobulated; one having the premise of understatement (not able to recognise the worthiness of his efforts and invention) with respect to his subject matter, or with a genuine interest in his know-how, albeit, not aware whether his know-how is prosecutable for protection;

- the marauders; one having the premise of nonchalant destruction and is prying the system only to scavenge for loopholes, and plausible leeway to gain entry and sublime recognition;

Then,
assumption of the hypothesis validates the clause that only the first type of people enumerated above, should arguably follow this new path.

Follow the two diametrically opposite viewpoints cited below:

1) Pointing the anomalies of the system;
versus
2) Elaborating the worthiness of the system.