Although not clearly defined,''Economic Study on Patent Backlogs and a System of Mutual Recognition, Final Report, To the Intellectual Property Office Prepared by London Economics''
January 2010 (pdf, 1,59 MB). the backlog of unexamined patent applications consists, at one point in time, of all the

patent application A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and re ...

s that have been filed and still remain to be examined. The backlog was said to be 4.2 million worldwide in 2007, and in 2009 it reportedly continued to grow. Alone, the

United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alex ...

(USPTO) was reported to have, in 2009, a backlog of more than 700,000 patent applications. According to

Beth Simone Noveck Beth Simone Noveck (born 1971) is New Jersey's first chief innovation officer, at Northeastern University where she directs the Burnes Center for Social Change, the Governance Lab and its MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance. She is a ...

, According to

Alison Brimelow Alison Jane Brimelow CBE (born 1949European Patent Office web site''Alison Brimelow's CV'' Consulted on 2 July 2007. ) is a British civil servant and former chief executive and Comptroller General of the UK Patent Office, now known as the Intell ...

, former president of the

European Patent Office The European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), the other being the Administrative Council. The EPO acts as executive body for the organisation

, the "backlog of patent applications is counter-productive to legal certainty, and that has a negative effect on the innovation process". According to a 2010 study by London Economics, "the cost to the global economy of the delay in processing patent applications may be as much as £7.65 billion each year." According to former U.S. federal judge

Paul R. Michel Paul Redmond Michel (born February 3, 1941) is a retired United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and a former Chief Judge of that court. Education and experience Born on February 3, 1941,>Joint C ...

, in an interview conducted in 2011, "delay is ..the greatest problem with the .S.patent system" and " he USPTOdesperately needs thousands of additional examiners and new IT systems. Indeed, it has needed them for years." Since 2006, a number of collaborations, known as

Patent Prosecution Highway The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is a set of initiatives for providing accelerated patent prosecution procedures by sharing information between some patent offices. It also permits each participating patent office to benefit from the work prev ...

(PPH), have been set up between various patent offices, in order to avoid the duplication of search and examination work and ultimately reducing the patent backlog. Also, several national patent offices, including United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), implemented programs for prioritized examination of patent applications in narrow categories or for patents applied by small firms. Some of these programs have been found to benefit small firms in terms of patent citations and quality; however, possibly because of higher patent quality and thus importance, the patents issued were more likely to be litigated. However, those applying for patents can sometimes prefer a lengthy ' patent pending' period and the legal uncertainty that it brings."Patent Backlogs"
UK Intellectual Property Office. Accessed 12 February 2018.

See also

References

Further reading