Perhaps All the PTO Needs is a Copy of Getting Things Done for Christmas?

Via IP/Updates: According to a paper by systems analysts at George Mason, the biggest culprit for the USPTO’s consistent and growing delinquency in processing patent applications is that they refuse to make decisions on applications.

As summarized by Bill Heinze over at IP/Updates, the queuing theory-based analysis found that:

“the excessive number of non-final rejections per application is the main cause of the system’s saturation…Reducing the number of non-final rejections per application is the most effective way to improve the throughput of the USPTO. This will help reduce the primary burden on the system — the large number of regular amended cases that remain alive in the system due to repeated non-final rejections.”

If only the big wigs over at the PTO were part of David Allen’s Getting Things Done Cult, this backlog problem would be solved YEARS ago.  As Allen explains, the key to clearing out that in box is “Never put anything back into ‘in'”, yet that seems to be what the PTO loves to do… over and over and over again. 

I’m thinking we should start a “GTD for PTO” campaign where people donate their used copies of GTD, we have them wrapped, and sent along with a nice note to as many needy PTO employees as possible this holiday season.  Anyone interested in helping out?