Dudas: In the near term, we'll see pendency grow for a few years

Diane Bartz of Reuters writing on issues at the USPTO:

The length of time it takes to get a patent -- also called "pendency" -- remains a problem and will not go away soon, said Jon Dudas, director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in a telephone interview.

"In the near term, we'll see pendency grow for a few years," he said.

AND, patent reform seems dead for 2007:

On Capitol Hill, the U.S. Senate is unlikely to take up before January a patent bill sought by many high tech firms, an aide to the Senate majority leader said on Wednesday.

Bartz mentions "hiring" of examiners, but not "departures" of examiners:

To tackle its backlog, the patent office said it hired 1,215 patent examiners in the 2007 fiscal year. The office currently has between 5,400 and 5,500 examiners, a spokeswoman said.

And, of the currently enjoined rules on continuing applications:

Dudas said he expected the patent office to win a legal fight with pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. The drugmaker has challenged the agency's new rules that put limits on both "claims," or how an applicant defines an invention, and on "continuations," the number of times an applicant can file on behalf of the same innovation.