The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is extending by one year its program that expedites review of applications for inventions intended to improve the environment and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
The program, which was scheduled to expire Dec. 8, has granted 790 petitions for the faster review and issued 79 patents since the initiative began a year ago, the Alexandria, Virginia-based agency said in a statement today. The average time before the first action on a “green technology” application is 49 days, the patent office said. That compares with the typical two-year wait.
