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Biowatch

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Biowatch

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Monday, 11/27/2006 6:44:03 PM

Monday, November 27, 2006 6:44:03 PM

Post# of 253377
semi-OT Patent backlog hampers nanotech sector

This is relevant because the biotech sector faced similar hurdles at the patent office when it was getting started. There weren't enough people at the patent office who knew anything about the field to review patents in a timely fashion. This also meant some of the early patents were too broad and were thus subject to expensive court battles. The fact that patents get published 18 months after filing (to bring it in line with the European patent system) makes it worse from a competitive standpoint.

By Jon Van

Chicago Tribune

Just as it's getting traction spawning new companies and products, the hot nanotechnology sector is running into a roadblock at the U.S. Patent Office.

As the time it takes to process patent applications now averages almost four years, double the time it took in 2004, nanotech entrepreneurs are beginning to worry that their ability to raise money to develop products may be stifled.

"Clearly there's a danger," said Stephen Maebius, a partner in the Foley & Lardner law firm, of the patent application backlog. "If you cross a threshold and it's taking too long, potential financial backers wonder if what you have is patentable or not."

Maebius, along with Vahe Mamikunian, an analyst with Lux Research, co-authored a recent report that noted that nanotech-related patent applications have grown by an average 20 percent over the past few years, compared with just 2 percent average growth in general applications. The number of patents issued also grew by 20 percent a year until 2005, when they increased by only 4 percent, the report found.

Nanotech utilizes new tools and techniques to create materials at the molecular level...

...Alan Gotcher, president and chief executive of Reno, Nev.-based Altair Nanotechnologies, whose firm is working with nanomaterials to improve battery performance, said he's been filing for nanotech patents since the late 1980s and the lag in processing them has become a problem recently.

"The impact is one of perception," Gotcher said. "When you don't get a response from a patent-application filing, you don't know what else is going on."

Information for rivals

For example, patent applications are published about 18 months after they're filed, Gotcher noted, which gives competitors information about your intellectual property before you have a patent protecting it.

"It gives your competition a clear view of what you're doing," said Gotcher. "It lets them modify their claims and sets the stage for future intellectual-property fights. Having less than a timely response from the patent office is a big deal."

Maebius and Mamikunian also found that in recent years nanotech patent applications have become more complex. A decade ago, entrepreneurs had simpler notions about nanomaterials, Mamikunian said.

The situation is further complicated because nanotech isn't so much a new niche, like biotechnology, but rather a new approach to doing almost anything that's been done in other ways in the past. That's creating problems for patent examiners, Mamikunian said.

"Nomenclature is different in each field," he said. For instance, someone working in the optics field might refer to a product as a "three/five nanocrystal that emits light," while someone working in semiconductors might apply for a patent on a "quantum dot." But "that's two patents to cover what's exactly the same thing," Mamikunian said.

Bruce Kisliuk, director of a patent-examining group at the patent office, said the agency does face a growing backlog across all areas.

"We have 700,000 applications in the pipeline," Kisliuk said. "Some are for nanotech, some not. This backlog isn't unique to nanotech."

Last year, the office issued fewer patents than usual because of an initiative to improve patent quality, Kisliuk said.

After years of being starved for resources, the office, which has had about 4,000 examiners, hired 1,200 new ones, bringing its total strength to nearly 4,800 examiners. Another 1,200 are due to be hired this year, he said.

"It's easy to be critical and come up with a solution when you're not the person who has to implement it," Kisliuk said. "We've been doing this for 200 years, and we think we're doing a pretty good job."

Examiners in many fields must become familiar with nanotechnology as it applies to their specialties, and the office has implemented a new categorization scheme intended to direct patent applications to examiners with expertise in that field, Kisliuk said.

While nanopatents are getting more complex, that's also true of everything, Kisliuk said.

"Technology generally has grown more complex," he said. "A century ago, a third of the patents we issued concerned bicycles."


etc.



http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003449208_btpatents27.html

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