The PTO is massively backlogged.

Many U.S. efforts are directed at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the federal agency charged with granting patents.81 For an inventor to receive U.S. patent protection on her [their] invention, she [they] must start the process by filing an application with the USPTO.82 This begins a back-and-forth between the applicant and the assigned patent examiner, who sends the applicant “Office Actions” containing the examiner’s conclusions regarding the patentability of the invention.83 The applicant may respond to these Office Actions, for example, by amending the invention’s claims to limit them to patentable subject matter, or by raising legal or technical arguments to counter the examiner’s reasoning.84 The process generally concludes when the claimed invention receives a “final rejection” or an “allowance” from the examiner.85 If the examiner issues a Notice of Allowance on a utility application, the inventor is granted a patent, which confers a 20-year exclusive right to prevent others from practicing the invention.86

The structure and nature of the patent process leads to many headaches for applicants and inventors. First, applicants must pay a variety of fees, including fees for filing, examination, search, issuance, and more.87 Even before filing, inventors often seek the help of a patent agent or attorney in drafting the application, and many choose to retain counsel to handle the entirety of the prosecution of the application. Second, the patent-granting process may be excruciatingly slow. As of January 2024, applicants must wait an overage of over twenty months before receiving a substantive response from the Patent Office.88 Patents are generally “pending” for around two years, and the USPTO has a current backlog of over 775,000 unexamined patent applications.89