Bay Area and California tech entrepreneurs and startups now have a permanent location for filing patents, as a new U.S. Patent and Trademark satellite office opened Thursday in a wing at San Jose City Hall.
The Silicon Valley office will serve the region and all of the West Coast as an education and outreach hub, USPTO said. A temporary office location previously was located in Menlo Park.
“For the first time in the 225 year history of the United States patent system, young innovators and entrepreneurs won’t have to expend the time and treasure to schlep all the way to Alexandria, Virginia, to meet face to face with a patent examiner or judge.” said Carl Guardino, president and CEO Silicon Valley Leadership Group.
There will be 80 patent examiners and 20 judges onsite in San Jose, Guardino said.
Guardino was joined at Thursday’s opening ceremony by Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, California’s congressional delegation and other dignitaries.
“When we passed the patent bill a number of years ago [in 2011], it provided there would be several satellite offices,” said Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, (D-19). “And idea was to get the patent office out of Alexandria, in the country close to inventors.”
Lofgren said tech companies, elected officials and academia all worked together to make sure an office was put in California and San Jose. In the Valley alone, there are 1,000 patent applications a month, she said. Lofgren said she’s from many who say the patent backlogs are coming down and the patent processing system is improving.
The first satellite office was opened in Detroit. Other locations will open in Denver and Dallas.
Darrell Issa, (R-49), said a higher quality of patents should be enhanced by having 120 staff at the Silicon Valley patent office, close to the area for tech innovation.
“We’re taking another step in geographic convenience, but in reaching out and putting people in areas where there ability to know and to help the process of giving the inventor what they innovated and nothing more,” Issa said.
The USPTO is hosting a startup seminar at the USPTO Silicon Valley Office at 26 S. Fourth Street in San Jose on Friday, Oct. 16.
For more information about the new office, go to http://www.uspto.gov/about-us/uspto-locations/silicon-valley-california
