PTO Hiring 2,000 New People

The Patent and Trademark Office is planning to hire as many as 2,000 new examiners. PTO wants to knock down a backlog of patent applications that's reached more than a million. It takes three years on average for an application to go through, while some 700,000 applications have yet to be opened and read. Director David Kappos said the new staff, if Congress approves it, will cut that to 600,000 within a year. President Obama signed into law a bill changing the way PTO awards patents, which favors the first to apply for a patent, instead of the first to invent. Last week the PTO awarded the nation's eight millionth patent.