The USPTO announced that it has partnered with the George Washington University School of Business to sponsor the 2008 International Business Case Competition, with this year’s topic matching business school teams against one another to find a solution to the USPTO’s current patent pendency and backlog problems. According to the USPTO announcement (link below), eighteen MBA teams will present proposed solutions “to a panel of judges, including USPTO senior management executives and business leaders from an array of industries including finance, technology, hospitality, consulting and others,” whereby “the judges will see a presentation by each team, then ultimately choose first, second and third place winning teams,” providing the USPTO with “the option to develop and implement ideas presented by the teams in the competition.” The announcement notes that the current backlog, namely the number of patents in the queue at the USPTO awaiting examination, stands at over 760,000, and that the current pendency, namely the amount of time it takes from the date of filing the application to a final USPTO decision, stands at approximately 32 months. This is the 15th year of this particular international business competition.

USPTO Announcement: LINK
GWU School of Business Website: LINK