Opening Statements
IP Exits
62% of patent examiners surveyed say they are dissatisfied with the time allotted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to achieve their production goals.
Many examiners have already shown their dissatisfaction by leaving the job; over the last five years, one patent examiner has left the PTO for nearly every two hired. The result is a backlog of patent applications that the PTO expects to increase to more than 1.3 million by the end of fiscal year 2011.
Source: Hiring Efforts Are Not Sufficient to Reduce the Patent Application Backlog, U.S. Government Accountability Office report, September 2007.
