Reforming the Patent System: Two Proposals

Kurt Saunders, Associate Professor of Business Law at California State University at Northridge

11/04/2008
(Original Publish Date: 3/1/2003)

Reform of the U.S. patent system has been the focus of two reports recently issued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the National Academies of Science (NAS). Each report was the result of a series of public hearings at which a number of business executives, economists, judges, scholars, and lawyers voiced serious and wide-ranging concerns about the effects of the patent system on economic development, competition, and technology innovation. The reports that emerged contained a number of proposals for legislative action and procedural reform. This article provides a background as to these reports and summarizes the proposals and recommendations contained in them