Patent examiner
A patent examiner (or, historically, a patent clerk
Duties
Patent examiners review
Examiners are expected to be efficient in their work and to determine patentability within a limited amount of time. Some patent applications are easy for an examiner to assess, but others require considerably more time. This has given rise to controversy: On April 13, 2007, a "Coalition of Patent Examiner Representatives" expressed concern that
in many patent offices, the pressures on examiners to produce and methods of allocating work have reduced the capacity of examiners to provide the quality of examination the peoples of the world deserve [and that] the combined pressures of higher productivity demands, increasingly complex patent applications and an ever-expanding body of relevant patent and non-patent literature have reached such a level that, unless serious measures are taken, meaningful protection of intellectual property throughout the world may, itself, become history.[2]
Offices
European Patent Office
Patent examiners at the European Patent Office (EPO) carry out examination and opposition procedures for patent applications originating anywhere in the world and seeking protection in any of the member states of the European Patent Organisation. The process involves a search for existing documentation in the technical area of the application (prior art) and communication with the applicant in order to bring the application in line with the legal requirements of the European Patent Convention. For every patent application, a division formed by three examiners must decide whether the application is granted or not, and in which scope.
EPO examiners are organized in a branched structured by their technical field of expertise and examine patent applications in three official languages, English, French, and German. They are recruited among nationals of the member states and work in one of the EPO offices in Munich, The Hague and Berlin.
Candidates for examiner positions must meet certain minimum requirements:
- EPO member state nationality;
- degree in engineering or in science;
- good knowledge of two languages out of German, English and French with a willingness to learn the third.[3]
Some examiners have work experience in industry, but such experience is not required.[3] EPO examiners are also reportedly required to speak three languages fluently.[4][5]
Most EPO examiners are represented by SUEPO, a trade union.[6]
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Patent examiners at the
Responsibilities for a patent examiner at the USPTO include:
- reviewing patent applications to determine if they comply with basic format, rules and legal requirements;
- determining the scope of the invention claimed by the inventor;
- searching for relevant technologies to compare similar prior inventions with the invention claimed in the patent application; and
- communicating findings as to the patentability of an applicant's invention via a written action to inventors/patent practitioners.
Examiners are hired at the GS-5, GS-7, GS-9 or GS-11 grade levels.[7][8]
Patent examiners in the U.S. have responsibilities that are commensurate with their GS level. Promotions from GS-7 to GS-14 are non-competitive. At GS-13 they are eligible to start the "Partial Signatory Authority" program, a testing phase to see if an examiner can apply patent concepts (e.g.
Supervisors at the USPTO are GS-15 employees who are necessarily primary examiners now called Supervisory Patent Examiners (formerly Supervisory Primary Examiners) (SPE, colloquially called "spee"). They apply for positions competitively and receive management training inside the office. They are responsible for an Art Unit of patent examiners, typically 8-15 examiners who examine cases in the same area of technology (e.g. GPS devices and aircraft are handled by different art units). Responsibilities include training new examiners, reviewing and signing office actions of junior examiners and acting as an advocate of the examiners they are responsible for to a variety of parties (e.g. other managers in the office, patent applicants and their attorneys). They are the lowest rung of the USPTO's management chain of command, and the only part of management that is paid as part of the general schedule (GS). Higher paid managers are part of the
According to the USPTO, an examiner is measured entirely by his own performance, without regard to the performance of others.
To work as an examiner at the USPTO, a person must be a
Experienced examiners have an option of working primarily from home through a hoteling program implemented in 2006 by the USPTO.[12]
A 2023 study looked into how political preferences of USPTO examiners affect their propensity to allow patent claims.[13] They found no statistically significant difference except for the case when the most politically active examiners (i.e. those who donate to political campaigns) examine software patents (i.e. in the Art Units where the examiners have the most discretion). In this case Republican-leaning examiners are more likely to issue patents than Democratically-leaning examiners.
Notable patent examiners
Name | Birth year | Death year | Description |
---|---|---|---|
1926 | 1998 | a Soviet engineer, inventor, scientist, journalist and writer. | |
Clara Barton[16][17][18] | 1821 | 1912 | worked at the United States Patent Office (Currently the USPTO) |
Albert Einstein[19] | 1879 | 1955 | worked at the Swiss Federal Office for Intellectual Property (now known as the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property)
|
Thomas Jefferson[20] | 1743 | 1826 | first patent examiner of the U.S. Patent Office |
Arthur Paul Pedrick[21] | ? (>1918) | 1976 | UK Patent Office examiner and prolific inventor |
Henry E. Baker[22][23][24] | 1857 | 1928 | The first person to record the work of Black American inventors, Henry E. Baker Jr. entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1874 as only the third Black person to ever attend. He later became Second Assistant at the U.S. patent office and published several works on Black inventors and their societal contributions. |
See also
- Law clerk
- Patent engineer
- Patent Office Professional Association, the United States patent examiners trade union
- Trademark examiner
- United States Patent Classification
References and notes
- ^ The title "patent clerk" is used for instance in Gary Stix, The Patent Clerk's Legacy, Scientific American, September 2004 (an article about Albert Einstein).
- Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt, Mr. David Tobin, Commissioner of Patents, Registrar of Trademarks and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Intellectual Property Office, Dr. Friedrich Rödler, President, Österreichisches Patentamt. April 13, 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-27 – via www.popa.org.)
{{cite press release}}
: CS1 maint: others (link - ^ a b "Required profile for an EPO patent examiner". European Patent Office (EPO), retrieved on June 28, 2010.
- ^ European Generic Medicines Association (October 2008). "Better Patents, Better Medicines: Recommendations on How to Improve The European Patent System" (PDF). p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-10.
- ISBN 978-1-4133-0854-9.
- ^ "Wir haben ein Auge darauf" [We keep an eye thereon]. Tageblatt Lëtzebuerg (in German). 28 December 2016. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
- General Scheduleemployee classification scheme within the US government.
- ^ See the examiner salary table as of January 1, 2007
- ^ Tu, Shine (2014). "Patent Examiners and Litigation Outcomes" (PDF). Stan. Tech. L. Rev. 17: 507–517. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 12, 2014.
- ^ "What makes the USPTO a great place to work?", USPTO Patent Examiner Recruitment, United States Patent and Trademark Office, retrieved on June 12, 2006. [dead link]
- ^ a b Tamara Dillon, "Patent work: The other side of invention", Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Fall 2009, page 21.
- ^ USPTO Patent Public Advisory Committee 2007 Annual Report
- ^ Partisan patent examiners? Exploring the link between the political ideology of patent examiners and patent office outcomes. 2023. Res Policy. 52/9. J. Raffiee, F. Teodoridis, D. Fehder. doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2023.104853.
- ISBN 0-07-143764-9
- ISBN 1-56327-305-5
- ISBN 0-521-81135-X
- ISBN 1-59257-132-8
- ISBN 0-253-21653-2
- ISBN 0-521-44834-4
- ISBN 1-56670-517-7
- ^ Healey, Tim (1983). Extraordinary Inventions. Reader's Digest Association Limited. pp. 44–46.
- ^ Baker, Henry E. (January 1, 1917). "The Negro in the Field of Invention". The Journal of Negro History. 2 (1): 21–36. doi:10.2307/2713474. ISSN 0022-2992. JSTOR 2713474.
- ^ Baker, Henry E. (1913). The Colored Inventor: A Record of Fifty Years. New York City: The Crisis Publishing Company.
- ^ Baker, Henry E. (1902). "The Negro as an Inventor". In Daniel Wallace Culp (ed.). Twentieth Century Negro Literature; Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro. Naperville, Illinois; Toronto: J.L. Nichols & Company. pp. 398–413. ISBN 9780598621122.
External links
- John W. Schoen, "U.S. patent office swamped by backlog; Without more funding, wait time could top 5 years". MSNBC, April 27, 2004. (ed., comments on problems and that 2900 new examiners are being sought by the USPTO.)
- Report to Congressional Committees 2005 "USPTO Has Made Progress in Hiring Examiners, but Challenges to Retention Remain" "[1] "