A patent examiner or patent clerk^[1] is an employee, usually a civil servant, working within a patent office. Major employers of patent examiners are the European Patent Office (EPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Japan Patent Office.

Work and duties

Patent examiners review patent applications to determine whether they should become a patent. The work of patent examiner usually includes searching patent and scientific literature databases for prior art, and substantively examining patent applications, that is examining whether the claimed invention meets the patentability requirements such as novelty, "inventive step" or "non-obviousness", "industrial application" (or "utility") and sufficiency of disclosure.

On April 13, 2007, a "Coalition of Patent Examiner Representatives" expressed its concern that

Patent examiners by legislation

European Patent Organisation

European Patent Organisation (EPO) examiners are exempted from work- and residence-permit procedures (but since most of EPC Contracting States are members of the European Union, this is usually not a problem anyway).

The examiners examine patent applications in three official languages (English language, French language, and German language). Examiners are hired for searching databases, document analysis, patent communications, and judging patent validity. Examiners can be represented by trade unions, FFPE-EPO and SUEPO.

A qualified examiner possesses the formal following minimums:

• EPO member state nationality,
• Degree in engineering or in science;
• knowledge and ability of the official languages

Some examiners have work experience in industry, but this is not an essential background as there is training in patent examination.^[2] Examiners can specialize in fields of technology in which inventions are patentable under the European Patent Convention (EPC), such as computer science, electricity and semiconductor technology, industrial chemistry, organic chemistry, electronics, horology, mechanical engineering, measuring, optics, telecommunications, polymer chemistry or civil engineering.^[2]

United States

American patent examiners prosecute applications for patents. Examiners are considered to be quasi-judicial, because they make legal determinations based on federal codes, rules, and judicial precedents. These legal determinations are appealable through the U.S. Courts. An appeal of these legal determinations is three steps away from the U.S. Supreme Court. American examiner responsibilities include:

• Reviewing patent applications to determine if they comply with basic format, rules and legal requirements;
• Determining the scope of the invention claimed by the inventor;
• Searching for relevant technologies to compare similar prior inventions with the invention claimed in the patent application; and
• Communicating findings as to the patentability of an applicant's invention via a written action to inventors/patent practitioners.

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Examiner work space at home

A qualified examiner with the USPTO is a United States citizen and holds at a minimum a Bachelor degree in one of the physical sciences, life sciences, engineering disciplines, or in computer science, and develops a level of expertise in patent law. Advanced academic degrees and relevant work experience in the technical area are not uncommon either. Specific fields^[8] include computer science (with calculus, differential equations and statistics), electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, civil engineering,agriculture engineering, biomedical engineering, ceramic engineering, textile engineering, computer hardware and software engineering, transportation and construction engineering, metallurgy, materials engineering, physics, chemical engineering, organic chemistry, chemistry, biology, and pharmacology.

Notable patent examiners and clerks

References and notes

See also

• Law clerk
• List of professions
• Patent attorney
• Patent engineer
• Patent Office Professional Association, the United States patent examiners trade union
• Trademark examiner
• United States Patent Classification

External links

• John W. Schoen, "U.S. patent office swamped by backlog; Without more funding, wait time could top 5 years". MSNBC, April 27, 2004. (ed., comments on problems and that 2900 new examiners are being sought by the USPTO.)
• Report to Congressional Committees 2005 "USPTO Has Made Progress in Hiring Examiners, but Challenges to Retention Remain" "http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05720.pdf "

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