The Senate Judiciary Committee conducted a confirmation hearing this morning for David Kappos’ nomination to be the Director of the PTO. Kappos provided a statement to the Committee that included the following hightlights.
- The PTO needs a stable and sustainable funding model. Kappos hates fee diversion. He would like the ability to set fees as PTO Director. He proposes to “refashion the fee system” and set fees as a relationship of the amount of work being done by the PTO.
- He appears to be more interested in reform at the PTO rather than in pending patent reform legislation.The PTO needs to address patent pendency concerns. There were questions about permitting expedited examination for some of the categories that previously qualified for petitions to make special. This practice was changed or eliminated when the PTO implemented the accelerated examination program.
- Kappos would like to re-make the examiner “count” system. He is aware that this is a majore morale issue among the examining corps. The count system limits the amount of time that examiners can spend on a particular application and provides incentives for examiners to promote RCEs and continuing applications.
- Kappos is aware that his consitutents as PTO Director would include not only large corporate entities, such as IBM, but also small and independent inventors, venture and start-up groups, public interest groups, and many others.
The hearing was rather brief and also included several other nominees for Federal judgeships.
Kappos seems to be saying the right things at this point. I assume his reference to fees proportionate to the amount of work required by the PTO means a large increase in fees for extra claims and longer applications.
It is not known when the Committee will vote on the nomination, but it may be soon. Thanks to Brian Fletcher of PatentabilityBlog for his summary of the hearing. Kappos statement is here.
