Colleen Chien testified before the Senate Judiciary IP Subcommittee on patent quality

On Oct 30, 2019 Prof. Colleen Chien testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, IP Subcommittee’s hearing, “How Can Congress Prevent the Issuance of Low-Quality Patents?” In her testimony, Chien drew from a decade of research on patent quality, her time as a patent prosecutor, and her work as senior intellectual property advisor in the Obama White House, providing the Subcommittee with her views of patent quality, AI, and rigorous experimentation in government. She proposed that the USPTO conduct pilots around “search first” and “robustness of prior art search,” as well as consider piloting a “defensive only” patent option like that which is offered in Europe. Read or listen to her testimony (which is at 47:24, 56:08, and others) at the link below and check out the research behind her testimony and two sets of conferences she organized on these topics:

• Opening Up the Patent System

• Comparative Patent Quality

• Experimentation in the Administration of the law.

Santa Clara – Duke conferences on patent quality

Santa Clara – University of Pennsylvania – Columbia Law – Administrative Conference of the US – Partnership for Public Service workshop on Rigorous Policy Pilots

Promoting the Useful Arts: How can Congress prevent the issuance of poor quality patents? Subcommittee on Intellectual Property hearing, Committee on the Judiciary