Corporations create a worldwide patent system
The existence of many independent states with their differing laws makes it very difficult for transnational corporations to protect their intellectual property (IP). Since the post-industrial society is based on IP, the inefficient operation of the system hinders all human progress.
The situation has greatly deteriorated recently. There are currently 3.5 million patent applications in the world, including 751,000 in the United States (three times more than a decade ago). The term of consideration has grown to three, four, and in some places even up to five years! In America, it grew over a decade from 20 to 32 months. Large companies draw up tens of thousands of patents, they have to hire a staff of hundreds of lawyers who follow this gigantic workflow. The USPTO employs 9,000 people, but even such a division cannot cope with the turnover.
In June, Obama offered IBM lawyer David Kappos the post of director of the USPTO, and David recently agreed. On this occasion, one of the leading lawyers of Microsoft Corporation, Horacio Gutieres, congratulated his colleague and outlined to him a plan to create a single worldwide patent system. Gutierrez calls this “harmonization.”
The ideal harmonious patent system should be unified, computerized, controlled from a single center - with a single application format, a common database, and so on. This process is slow. The patent offices of the United States, Japan and Europe have cooperated to exchange information already since 1983, but the result is not impressive. Only in November 2008, China and Korea joined them and formed the “big five” IP5 . Microsoft offers to speed up the process. She is ready to assist in the development of the Patent Information Highway in every way.
The situation has greatly deteriorated recently. There are currently 3.5 million patent applications in the world, including 751,000 in the United States (three times more than a decade ago). The term of consideration has grown to three, four, and in some places even up to five years! In America, it grew over a decade from 20 to 32 months. Large companies draw up tens of thousands of patents, they have to hire a staff of hundreds of lawyers who follow this gigantic workflow. The USPTO employs 9,000 people, but even such a division cannot cope with the turnover.
In June, Obama offered IBM lawyer David Kappos the post of director of the USPTO, and David recently agreed. On this occasion, one of the leading lawyers of Microsoft Corporation, Horacio Gutieres, congratulated his colleague and outlined to him a plan to create a single worldwide patent system. Gutierrez calls this “harmonization.”
The ideal harmonious patent system should be unified, computerized, controlled from a single center - with a single application format, a common database, and so on. This process is slow. The patent offices of the United States, Japan and Europe have cooperated to exchange information already since 1983, but the result is not impressive. Only in November 2008, China and Korea joined them and formed the “big five” IP5 . Microsoft offers to speed up the process. She is ready to assist in the development of the Patent Information Highway in every way.
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/68648/
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