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20 June 2018Patents

USPTO: 10 millionth patent represents ‘continuum of human accomplishment’

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) yesterday issued its ten millionth patent, for a laser detection system.

The patent, called “Coherent ladar using intra-pixel quadrature detection”, was granted to technology and innovation company Raytheon and was invented by Raytheon principal engineering fellow Joseph Marron.

“This patent represents one of ten million steps on a continuum of human accomplishment launched when our founding fathers provided for IP protection in our constitution,” said USPTO director Andrei Iancu.

He added: “Some of the greatest leaps humanity has made have been fuelled by our greatest inventors, Americans who have changed the course of history with their brilliance and dogged perseverance.”

The first US patent was granted on July 31, 1790 by the President at the time, George Washington. It was issued to Samuel Hopkins for a process of making potash, an ingredient used in fertiliser.

According to the USPTO, the US’s founding fathers called for a patent system in order to “promote the progress of science and useful arts”.

Bob Stembridge, marketing communications manager, IP and standards at Clarivate Analytics, told WIPR that there was a 120-year wait between the first and the one millionth patent being issued.

“With the publication of the ten millionth patent, that gap will have closed to just three years and two months since the nine millionth patent was published,” he explained.

Stembridge predicted that the grant of the 11 millionth patent may be expected in June 2021.

While the USPTO said that this new patent represents the achievements of US innovation, not everyone expressed the same level of enthusiasm.

Matt Troyer, director of patent analytics at IP management software company Anaqua, said that the USPTO had missed an opportunity.

Troyer had predicted that the ten millionth patent would relate to communications technology and be created by a female inventor.

“In my view, the choice seems somewhat mundane,” he told WIPR. “The USPTO missed an opportunity for impactful public relations and to push the agenda of US innovation."

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12 April 2018   Andrei Iancu, director of the US Patent and Trademark Office, has said the US must create a more positive dialogue around patents.