About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

FGMSD-80-40 1 (1980-05-09)

handle is hein.gao/gaobabaqg0001 and id is 1 raw text is: COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES WAHINGTON. D.C a RELEASED B-198514 RESTRICTED r rot to I r~eT -ed or!tVCe the GeMAVA, 1980 Accountir r ,z -:rc- .e g of specific approval by the Office of o e ,o,, l Feations. ~~~l . I S E ll lll l l !l l l l l ! 11 11 The Honorable Lloyd Bentsen f~Ilfhl111 Chairman, Joint Economic Committee 1 United States Senate 1111j j11j1jII1I I 112512 Dear Mr. Chairman: Subject: be- Feasibility of Automating the Search Process at the Patent and Trademark Offic)(FGMSD-80-40) We reviewed the feasibility of automating the search process at the Patent and Trademark Office as you requested on April 9, 1979. You asked us to briefly examine the Of- fice's prior art patent search process to determine whether automation of this process would reduce costs and improve quality. In the search process the concept in a patent application is compared with concepts in previously issued patents and nonpatent literature. We did not review the overall effectiveness of the patent system. We do not believe that the prior art search process should be automated at this time for several reasons. First, if the search process were automated it would save little patent processing time. The manual search process takes only about 4 hours of the average 15 hours spent examining a patent and is a very small part of the average 21 months it takes to process a patent. Secondly, the manual search process relies on knowledge of the subject, judgment, and review of drawings and descriptive technical data, and would be a highly complex process to automate. Finally, the cost of automation could not be justified at this time on the basis of reduced examiner search time alone. Future technology as well as the additional benefits to the public in terms of en- hanced patent quality and improved dissemination of patent information may shift that balance. Continued efforts toward eventual automation appear justified. Although automation of the search process at this time would not significantly improve the patent examining process, there is a more serious problem that should be addressed--the lack of integrity in the examiners' files. These and other matters are discussed in this report. (910307) ;4,

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most