Amid Calls to Address USPTO’s Backlog, Patent Examiners Tell Congressional Watchdog the Agency “Emphasizes Output Over Quality”

Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report calling on the USPTO to address what has been characterized as a longstanding emphasis on quantity of output (i.e., the number of patent applications examined) over the “quality of such review”. The GAO’s study was conducted at the request of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, which this week held its first hearing of 2025. While the primary focus of that hearing was the potential threat posed by foreign entities to the US IP system, the USPTO’s historic backlog of pending patent applications, which today exceeds an inventory of 830,000 applications, was repeatedly highlighted.