Grassley on the Patent Reform Act of 2011

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Patent Reform Act of 2011, which means it will go on to the Senate floor for consideration. Senator Grassley of Iowa was a co-sponsor of the bill, and he talked about his reasons for introducing the bill in his weekly address:

I agree that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (or “USPTO”) has issues that need to be addressed. It’s currently taking a shade under three years for the average patent to issue, according to the official statistics of the USPTO. The enormous 721,000+ backlog of pending applications is the primary problem, but patent quality is an issue too.

Once I’ve had a chance to study the Senate bill, I’ll post my comments and call my Congressional team.