Attorneys Ask Obama For PTO Improvements
President-elect Barack Obama should appoint a Patent and Trademark Office director who is a lawyer with patent and trademark experience; is knowledgeable of both domestic and international intellectual property laws; and has management skills sufficient to oversee the operations of the ever-growing agency, the American Bar Association's IP law section said in recommendations sent this week to the transition team. U.S. law contains a similar but less demanding statement of qualifications for the director, the ABA pointed out.
The group said the PTO should be statutorily allowed to keep the fees it collects from applicants and not have that money diverted to other federal projects. While congressional appropriators and the Bush administration have let the office do this in recent years, the change should be codified in law, the ABA said. Another recommendation was to expand the right of the public to submit "prior art" in pending patent applications -- a modification that would ensure an examiner has all the relevant information. The ABA also suggested the PTO take a number of steps to ensure that it retains and recruits a high- quality workforce. Read ABA's full submission here.
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