Orange County’s largest business coalition is throwing its support and lobbying muscle in Washington to attract a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office satellite location to Silicon Valley.
The Orange County Business Council—which represents 300 companies, government agencies and nonprofits here—is backing a bid by the city of San Jose over closer regions, including Los Angeles and San Diego.
Chief Executive Lucy Dunn said OCBC has long ties to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a similar organization in San Jose.
Dunn and her counterpart, Carl Guardino, co-founded and co-chair the Regional Economic Association Leaders of California, comprised of the state’s 20 largest economic-development groups and chambers of commerce.
OC business leaders are advocating for a patent office in California even if it’s not in Silicon Valley.
“We just don’t want another state awarded this,” Dunn said.
Expansion
The America Invents Act, passed last September, featured a provision to add three satellite offices to the main patent office in Washington, D.C. The move marks the agency’s first expansion since its inception in 1790.
Backers say a satellite office in California will speed up the patent application process, ease backlog, boost research and development, encourage growth of intellectual-property law firms and significantly trim travel time and costs for West Coast entrepreneurs. Currently, applicants must travel to Washington to meet with patent regulators and often face up to a three-year wait for approvals.
“In-person interviews could greatly improve the quality of the patent examination, especially with the complex software patents that we have here in California,” said Sarah Brooks, an intellectual property litigator with Newport Beach-based Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth P.C.
Stradling and Irvine-based Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP—which is the county’s largest law firm, and solely engages in intellectual property work—stand to benefit if Silicon Valley, Los Angeles or San Diego get the nod because each law firm has offices in those markets.
Cost of Living
The U.S. Patent Office is expected to select a satellite site based on cost of living, regional expertise and economic impact, among other criteria.
A decision could come as soon as this month, according to an informed source.
The first satellite office is scheduled to open next month in Detroit, situated amid U.S. automakers and other manufacturers.
Competition is stiff, with about 50 markets still in contention, including Texas, New York and Denver. The list was paired down from 600 original applicants and will be trimmed to about 10 finalists.
Orange County and its 34 cities were not among the applicants, a somewhat surprising revelation considering its legacy of businesses innovation, international trade and patent creation.
Top distinction in that latter category goes to Silicon Valley, which received 4.1% of the 244,341 U.S. patents granted in 2010, according to the most recent available data. That’s almost as big a share as New York, Chicago and Austin, Texas, combined.
Silicon Valley accounted for a third of California’s patents granted in 2010.
“I do think one will come to California, and we believe it should be in Silicon Valley,” SVLG’s Guardino said. “California absolutely cannot be bypassed in this process.”
The SVLG has hosted David Kappos, the undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property and U.S. Patent Office director, several times since he took office in 2009, and lobbied to get the satellite office provision in the reform bill.
San Diego-area business interests also are making their pitch in Washington.
“We have a robust innovation community with high patent activity, plus a quality of life that is more attractive than other California competitors, while also providing lower operating costs for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office,” said Duane Roth, chief executive of La Jolla-based Connect.
San Diego
The regional organization links investors with entrepreneurs to spur technology and life products. It submitted a bid in January to locate a satellite office in San Diego County, supported by the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.
U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-San Diego), who is a patent holder, has called for the patent office to be located in his region and was a chief backer of the patent reform bill.
