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Series

Administrative Law

2013

Faculty Scholarship

Patent and Trademark Office

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Does Agency Funding Affect Decisionmaking?: An Empirical Assessment Of The Pto’S Granting Patterns, Michael D. Frakes, Melissa F. Wasserman Jan 2013

Does Agency Funding Affect Decisionmaking?: An Empirical Assessment Of The Pto’S Granting Patterns, Michael D. Frakes, Melissa F. Wasserman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Improving (Software) Patent Quality Through The Administrative Process, Arti K. Rai Jan 2013

Improving (Software) Patent Quality Through The Administrative Process, Arti K. Rai

Faculty Scholarship

The available evidence indicates that patent quality, particularly in the area of software, needs improvement. This Article argues that even an agency as institutionally constrained as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) could implement a portfolio of pragmatic, cost-effective quality improvement strategies. The argument in favor of these strategies draws upon not only legal theory and doctrine but also new data from a PTO software examination unit with relatively strict practices. Strategies that resolve around Section 112 of the patent statute could usefully be deployed at the initial examination stage. Other strategies could be deployed within the new post-issuance …