In mid-December
http://casipblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/uspto-speeds-review-of-green-patents/
we reported on a USPTO fast-track program for green patents.
The July issue of Scientific American reports
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=patent-still-pending
that:
…the agency (USPTO) has approved only about one third of the requests it has received, disappointing inventors and even the Patent Office itself. The program’s acceptance rate is “less than I would have expected,” says Robert L. Stoll, the agency’s commissioner for patents.
USPTO is considering changes to the rules that would enable more applications to get on the fast-track, but there are other factors. Perhaps most significant is summarized by Mark Bünger, a research director at Lux Research, a New York–based technology consulting firm, who claims that “there will never be something like a killer app in clean technology”.
History indicates that innovation is often driven by inventions in unrelated technologies which, when combined, enable breakthroughs to emerge.
Post written by Peter Bloch , consultant to CAS-IP
