Excerpt from Patent System and Modern Technology Needs; Meeting the Challenge of the 21st Century: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Technology of the Committee on Science, U. S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, Second Session, June 6, 1996 Mrs. Morella. Everybody seems to be here for this hearing, so I think I am going to commence in the interest Of time. SO the meeting of the Subcommittee on Technology of the Science Commit tee will now come to order. Today we convene the Subcommittee on Technology for the pur pose of exploring the dramatic changes that are taking place in our manufacturing sector with regard to the pace at which techno logical advancements are conceived, developed, and moved into the marketplace. As product development and market life cycles for many indus tries have become more and more compressed in time, serious questions are being raised with the ability of our nation's systems of intellectual property protection, particularly the patent system, its ability to cope with the needs of our industrial innovators for cost, effective, timely, and simplified procedures for securing intel lectual property rights to new inventions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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The U.S. patent system is in an accelerating race with human ingenuity and investments in innovation. In many respects the system has responded with admirable flexibility, but the strain of continual technological change and the greater importance ascribed to patents in a knowledge economy are exposing weaknesses including questionable patent quality, rising transaction costs, impediments to the dissemination of information through patents, and international inconsistencies. A panel including a mix of legal expertise, economists, technologists, and university and corporate officials recommends significant changes in the way the patent system operates. A Patent System for the 21st Century urges creation of a mechanism for post-grant challenges to newly issued patents, reinvigoration of the non-obviousness standard to quality for a patent, strengthening of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, simplified and less costly litigation, harmonization of the U.S., European, and Japanese examination process, and protection of some research from patent infringement liability.