Patent office workers bilked the government of millions by playing hooky, watchdog finds; Washington Post, 8/31/16

Lisa Rein, Washington Post; Patent office workers bilked the government of millions by playing hooky, watchdog finds:

"Thousands of employees who review patents for the federal government potentially cheated taxpayers out of at least $18.3 million as they billed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for almost 300,000 hours they never worked, according to a new investigation.

The investigation scheduled for release Wednesday by the independent watchdog for the Commerce Department, the patent office’s parent agency, determined that the real scale of fraud is probably double those numbers..."

The hours not worked could have helped the patent office whittle down a backlog it has struggled for years to shrink, the report said. The backlog stood at about 550,000 applications last spring. Reviews take 16 to 26 months to complete...

The patent office, while relatively small, plays a big role in supporting the nation’s economic development by determining whether innovators’ new products should be given sole rights to exclude competitors from making or selling their invention. The government issued 326,000 patents last year."

© 2009? Wishful Thinking, Perhaps, as Backlog Mounts; Washington Post, 5/19/09

Lyndsey Layton via Washington Post; © 2009? Wishful Thinking, Perhaps, as Backlog Mounts:

"A serious logjam in the U.S. Copyright Office has created a growing mountain of paper applications, more than the staff can process. Like the marching buckets of water in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," the envelopes just keep coming, threatening to flood the operation.

The problem has tripled the processing time for a copyright from six to 18 months, and delays are expected to get worse in coming months. The library's inspector general has warned that the backlog threatens the integrity of the U.S. copyright system.

The irony is that the slowdown stems from a new $52 million electronic process that is supposed to speed the way writers and others register their literary, musical or visual work.

The delays do not appear to be hampering the business of the major publishing houses or those willing to spend $685 for a "special handling fee" that expedites registration. But the slowdown is frustrating hundreds of thousands of little-known people with big dreams."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/18/AR2009051803171.html