You have the rare opportunity on May 16th to meet USPTO Patent Commissioner John Doll and hear his thoughts on the future of the US Patent and Trademark Office. Seats are still available. Here are some of the key trends affecting the USPTO and the American Inventor:

• Where once raw materials and other tangible goods were the main drivers of the economy, today economic success depends more and more on intangible, information-based assets, such as the creativity of employees and the knowledge gained from research.
• As a result, intellectual property-based industries, such as biotechnology and motion pictures, now represent the largest single sector of the U.S. economy.
• Intellectual Property industries export more American value to the world than the automobile, automobile parts, agricultural, and aircraft industries combined.
• Patent applications have more than doubled since 1992.
• In the last five years alone, biotechnology-related patent filings increased 46 percent and pharmaceutical and chemical-related filings climbed 42 percent.
• The USPTO issued more patents last year than they did in the first forty years of USPTO history.
• Worldwide at USPTO offices and their counter-parts in Europe, Japan and other national IP offices 12 million patents are pending in the examination pipeline. In addition to the sheer volume of these applications, the technical complexity of patent applications is increasing rapidly.

EVENT: Movers and Shakers Breakfast Series

DATE: May 16, 2006

TIMES: 8:00 – 9:30 am

LOCATION: Phipps Mansion – Tennis Pavilion, 3400 Belcaro Drive, Denver, Colorado 80209

DIRECTIONS: Click here for map

WEBSITE: http://www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=135
PRODUCED BY: The DaVinci Institute and the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business

SPEAKER: USPTO Commissioner John Doll

COST: $59 – ($10 discount for DaVinci Institute Members) – Register here.

NOTE: We will be limited to a seating capacity of 225 people. Because this will fill up quickly, everyone must be registered to attend.

On May 16th the DaVinci Institute will play host to USPTO Commissioner John Doll at the Phipps Mansion, the site of the former G8 Summit. Commissioner Doll’s talk will be on the "Future of the US Patent & Trademark Office".

One of the most distinctive institutions in the United States is the US Patent and Trademark Office. Patents have a history stretching back 500 years in the United Kingdom, but the USPTO was launched when Thomas Jefferson influenced the development of the first national patent system in 1790.

American ingenuity today is at an all-time high. Each year we are setting new records in the number of patent filings. To give you a sense of the volume, the patent office received 356,943 patent applications in fiscal 2004. During this same period of time it granted 181,302 patents. The backlog of patent applications is over 950,000 deep, and inventors who file a patent wait an average of 27 months for their application to be processed.

So where are we headed with the patent system? Join us for some profound insight into the future of the USPTO from the person who is in charge of making it happen.

SPEAKER: John J. Doll is the Commissioner for Patents, responsible for all aspects of the patent granting process for the United States, more than 5,000 employees, and an annual budget of more than $970 million.

Previously, Mr. Doll served as Deputy Commissioner for Patent Resources and Planning, and on a detail assignment as Special Assistant to Jon Dudas, Director of the USPTO. Before his detail, Mr. Doll was the Director of Groups 1610 a nd 1630 that examine organic chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology.

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MEMBERSHIP in the DaVinci Institute is only $150 and allows you to attend both the Startup Junkie Underground and the Night with a Futurist for free. Student memberships are still just $119. If you’d like to join as a member, please go to www.davinciinstitute.com/member.php.

We hope to see you there.

Thomas J. Frey
Executive Director
The DaVinci Institute
PO Box 270315
Louisville, CO 80027
(303) 666-4133
www.davinciinstitute.com