To require the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to establish and carry out a pilot program to expedite the examination of applications for certain patents, and for other purposes.
The Leadership in CET Act directs the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to establish a pilot program that speeds up the examination of patent applications for critical and emerging technologies, specifically artificial intelligence, microelectronics, and quantum information science. The program targets U.S.-based companies and individual inventors by allowing their patent applications to move ahead in the examination queue without paying standard petition fees, which can accelerate the path to receiving patent protection. The Director of the Patent and Trademark Office must launch the pilot program within one year of the bill's enactment and must track and publicly report on the number of applications received and patents issued. The pilot program will run for five years from the date the first patent is issued under the program, or until 10,000 applications are accepted into the program, whichever comes first, with the option to renew for an additional five years or until another 10,000 applications are processed. The Patent and Trademark Office will submit a final report to Congress within 180 days after the program ends, assessing whether the expedited process successfully encouraged innovation in these strategic technology areas.
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