Medical and Dental Device Patenting Blog : Medical and Dental Patent Lawyer & Attorrney : John Rizvi : Gold & Rizvi Law Firm : Florida, Serving Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, Florida

An article in The Economist sheds some light on the present patenting scenario, and provides an interesting perspective. It says,

Inventive Japan grants more patents than any other country. In 2002-05, on average 1,213 were given out for every million people, according to data collected for 82 countries by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The corresponding figures for the United States are about a third in comparison to Japan. Surprisingly, size seems to be a determining factor, as the article goes on to state,

Generally, small countries grant the most patents. Switzerland, Sweden and Finland benefit from clusters of world-class companies in high-tech sectors and a highly educated workforce. Israel can thank its well-educated immigrants. Crumbling Cuba grants more patents than fast-growing India or China, though both countries are better known for their ability to copy, rather than create, intellectual property.

According to the WIPO Patent Report, 2007 Edition, the number of patent applications in the US is at an all-time high. By patent applications count, Medical Technology is the fastest growing technical field. And this surge is putting an enormous amount of pressure on the patent office. But nevertheless, Japan seems to be way ahead. Maybe it’s time we inject some more professional vigor into the patenting system to come up to speed.

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The WIPO Patent Report, 2007 Edition, mentions that,

Increasing demand has led to increases in workload in some patent offices, although the number of patent applications pending examination differs significantly from one office to another. The United States of America had more than 900,000 pending applications in 2005, with Japan having the next largest number of pending applications (according to available data).

The following data will give you a better picture about this trend –

·        In 2005, about 1,660,000 patent applications were filed worldwide, which is an increase of 7% over 2004.

·        The average annual rate of increase in total patent filings since 1995 is 4.7%.

A bulk of this activity is concentrated in the US and medical technology patents lead the pack. I have already mentioned before how this surge is being accompanied by patent invalidation due to improper patenting methods being followed. With such heightened level of activity, it is becoming more and more important to get professional help while drafting patents, as every error is going to multiply the delays in the process, given the overburdened nature of the patent office at the present juncture.

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According to the data released in the WIPO Patent Report, 2007 Edition,

The three fastest growing technical fields from 2000 to 2004 were medical technology (+32.2%), Audio-visual technology (+28.3%) and information technology (+27.7%).

This is based on the number of patent applications filed from 2000 to 2004. The figures for the corresponding years are –

2000 – 55,813

2001 – 59,415

2002 – 61,569

2003 – 72,229

2004 – 73,789

In addition, the report also states that the major portion of this activity is concentrated in the United States; and also goes on to mention how the patent offices are being overburdened due to this great surge in activity.

In such a hectic field of activity, it is of paramount importance that applicants have proper knowledge and/ or guidance about the various intricate rules and regulations concerning patents so that their work can proceed smoothly without any hitches caused because of inadvertent mistakes. As the activity surges, the need for taking professional help in this regard increases too.

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The patent office is beginning a pilot program of sending electronic office actions and replacing the paper version. USPTO will let a few participants into the program starting from August 31. Not only is this convenient, this would be a step forward in rapidly clearing the bottlenecks in a situation where the patent office is being flooded with patent applications, riding on the wave of the boom in medical technology patents.

Excerpt from the announcement e-mail -

e-Office Action Pilot Program

The USPTO is hosting a pilot program for customers to evaluate and comment on the usability and functionality of the e-Office Action program. As an alternative to receiving new outgoing correspondence related to a patent application in paper via postal mail, this program sends the pilot participant an e-mail notification to directly access outgoing documents in Private PAIR.

The pilot will be entering Phase IV on August 31, 2007, and USPTO will open registration in the pilot to a limited number of new participants at this time.

If you would like to provide feedback on the e-Office Action Pilot Program or if you would like to participate in the pilot and need additional information, please send an e-mail to PAIR@uspto.gov.

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The latest post in the McBru Blog poses this question. Quite surprising, given the fact that there is a huge surge in medical technology patents, and the Patent Office is being deluged with patent applications. An excerpt,

The latest worldwide patent report came out recently. It is a fascinating document. See if you can guess who files the most patents and wins by almost every measure (such as patent density, patents per R&D dollar, etc). Did you guess USA? Wrong. Did you guess China. Nope. It's Japan.

When it comes to sizing up the Asian tigers, don't count out Japan yet. Though its population is aging rapidly, its government barely able to govern due to voter backlash against its leadership, its ability to irk the Chinese by rewriting history, and the near-complete lack of opportunities for women, Japan is staying on top of the patent race. By almost any measure, Japan is exceeding all other nations in the world in patent filings, especially technical patents.

The problems at our end may be the huge number pending applications in the patent office, and the fact that errors and improper filings create continuous logjams. The solution is simple; increase awareness and inject a healthy dose of professionalism from the first step of the process. The kinks would be smoothened out automatically.

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In the backdrop of patent application surges and a boom in medical patents, a report titled ‘The Means to Compete’ by the Economist Intelligence Unit of The Economist, sheds some light on the relation between patents and innovation, an issue which is generating considerable debate at this time.

..the indicators used in the index—public and private expenditure on R&D, and the generation of patents, royalties and licence fees— provide a good picture of the overall R&D environment and innovation-oriented activity in countries.

Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are clear leaders in this category, and the US, Finland and Sweden are also strong performers. Companies’ prolific patent generation is the primary factor in East Asia’s high R&D index scores. Buoyant private-sector investment in R&D is also an important contributor to this region’s strong innovation environments, as it is in the US and Nordic countries. In the latter, the earning of healthy royalties and licence fees is another reflection of high levels of innovative activity.

While the indicators point to a strong co-relation between patents and innovation, a similar picture is seen throughout the world. As the same report mentions,

East Asian economies are prolific generators of patents, and along with the US they are noteworthy for high levels of private-sector investment in R&D, which is integral to product and service innovation…

The consensus seems clear.

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The Florida Biomedical Research Programs website reports in a press release that some good news for heart patients may be just around the corner.

In the case of a heart attack, a few minutes can spell the difference between life and death. Now, a new medical device can be produced that can cut minutes or even hours off the time it takes to begin life-saving treatment. The Florida Department of Health has announced the award of a James & Esther King Biomedical Research Program grant of $99,942 to help fund the development of a device that will allow for rapid detection of heart attack in patients who experience chest pain or other symptoms commonly associated with this condition.

 When a person suffers a heart attack, certain proteins are released into the bloodstream at elevated levels. The new device, which is under a U.S. patent, will use magnet technology to separate these "cardiac markers" out of a small blood sample, allowing for much quicker measurements than was previously available.

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I got a taste of things to come just after I’d posted my observations ‘The Patent-Innovation Circle of Progress’. Many of my friends in the profession called up to express their opinions, one side or the other. My follow-up post ‘Patents Lead to Breakthroughs in Medical Technology’ generated even more heat, although you’ll notice that I was just quoting from previously published articles in both cases.

The debate is now raging in many parts of the web. I found the Mises Economics Blog’s response to a post in the Patent Law Blog (Patently-O) quite interesting. Dennis Crouch (Patently-O) summarized Meurer & Bessen’s arguments from their upcoming book “Do Patents Work?” to pose the question ‘Do Patents Discourage Innovation?’ The very next day, Stephan Kinsella came up with a ‘So What?’ on the Mises Economics Blog; responding to Crouch’s statement that

Meurer & Bessen do not suggest dismantling the patent system — rather, they believe that a number serious reform measures are needed to shift the balance back to a positive state where patents incentivize innovation.

with a tart reply,

Yes, what we need is a new Five Year Plan!

Regular debates on various issues indicate the health of a profession. Five Year Plan or not, that’s what we really need!

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After reading my post ‘The Patent-Innovation Circle of Progress’, many of my friends called me up to express their opinions, for or against. After hearing all sorts of views, I’d like to point out here that I hadn’t drawn any inferences in my post; I simply made an observation based on a couple of quotes in an article in Law.com.

But whether or not everyone agrees that patents and innovations complement each other, what struck me from talking to so many people was that they believed that this was a very new issue. I’d like to draw your attention to an article in the New York Times which was published more than a decade ago (May 13, 1995).

An excerpt:

"Some people mistakenly assume that breakthrough medical technologies will occur without patents, but they will not," said Lisa Raines, vice president for government affairs at the Genzyme Corporation in Cambridge, Mass., which is working on gene therapies for cystic fibrosis and also owns part of a company that is developing transgenic goats that produce valuable drugs in their milk.

Ms. Raines noted that biotechnology companies must raise tens of millions of dollars years before they have a marketable product, and patents provide the only assurance of being able to profit in the event that high-risk research is successful.

Same issue. Same conclusion.

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