Scientific research is very much a team effort, usually involving collaborations between researchers at different institutions and, quite often, movement of collaborators between laboratories. But this can create problems when deciding whom to credit for specific work — be it on journal papers or patents. In a dispute between academic researchers over who should be named as patent inventors, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that this should be awarded only to the scientists who conceived the idea of the invention.
Big challenges certainly confront the global patent system: Escalating patent application backlogs; lengthening pendency periods; increasing costs of patent prosecution; dubious patent quality due to the global explosion of prior art and the time allowed to examine applications; and examination inefficiency due to duplication of work by multiple offices. But these challenges also present unprecedented opportunity. One of the biggest is the opportunity to advance patent harmonization. Global patent harmonization is not just wishful thinking about an ideal patent system. Rather, it is a necessity if national patent authorities are to overcome the substantial difficulties they face. Over 3.5 million patent applications are pending around the world, including over 750,000 in the U.S. Pendency periods are extending to three, four or in some case five years before final patents are issued. The cost of this workload to patent applicants and patent offices is too high, and the delays in securing patents are too long for entrepreneurs and large enterprises alike.
