Chief Judge Paul Michel recently said:
"The patent system is failing primarily because the patent office is failing. In a word, it is dysfunctional. Over 700,000 applications sit unread in a warehouse in Alexandria, Virginia, often for years. Although 400,000 are under examination, their progress is far too slow. And every year almost 400,000 more are filed."
Patent Examiner Work Bench (PxWB) is intended to address the patent application backlog by helping Examiners do their tasks more easily.
PxWB alone won't eliminate the backlog, but PxWB may increase efficiency and quality in patent application examination.
The PxWB integrated environment is open source software and is freely distributed under the GNU General Public License.
Get PxWB at www.pxwb.org and experiment.
Of course, PxWB is a work in progress. Constructive comments are welcomed.
