US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is often criticized for its propensity to grant many patents of low quality.
Patent systems are commonly classified as stronger when:
- More domains are patentable
- The period of patent protection is longer
- The geographical scope is enlarged
Normalized quality indices
The impact of the patent reform of the US, the America Invents Act is illustrated by the US11 index and the US11+25% index.
The former reflects the facts that the reform results in the creation of an opposition process and the adoption of a first-to-file system. The latter index takes into account the fact that the office would allocate more resources per examiner (an increase of 25%) as a result of gaining control of its
own fee revenues.