Colorado will be home to a new regional United States Patent and Trademark Office by 2014, but a decision on exactly where that office will be located is likely several months out, officials say.
Several local leaders, including Gov. John Hickenlooper and Sen. Michael Bennet announced the metro area’s selection during a press conference at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora last week.
While officials say Aurora will likely be one of the cities considered when the Commerce Department decides where the office will be, that decision is likely several months off.
“That’s hard to predict at this point,” said John Posthumus, a Denver patent lawyer who has long advocated for a satellite office in Colorado.
Officials from Commerce and the General Services Administration will consider various locations over the next six months, Posthumus said.
The location will need to be easily accessible via mass transit, he said, and the site will need to be secure.
Beyond that, Posthumus said it’s unclear what exactly officials will be looking for in the site selection process. “At this point I think it’s hard to tell what they are thinking, what they are doing,” he said.
In announcing Colorado’s selection last week, officials said the facility would be a boon to the state’s growing crop of local inventors and entrepreneurs.
Under the current system, the only place where inventors can get a patent for a new invention is at the Alexandria office, just outside Washington, D.C. Later this month the first satellite office will open in Detroit.
In 2014, offices are scheduled to open in Colorado, California and Texas.
Gov. John Hickenlooper said federal officials are expected to begin selecting where the office will be in the coming weeks.
Bryan Blakely, president of Accelerate Colorado and vice president of the Aurora Economic Development Council, said last week Aurora would be one of many local cities vying for the office.
According to Accelerate Colorado, the new office will allow the Patent Office to more efficiently process patent applications and give Colorado companies increased access to file their intellectual property. The office’s headquarters in Alexandria, Va. has 1.2 million pending patent applications, including nearly 641,142 applications that have yet to receive a preliminary evaluation, the group said. The average time to first office action is 22.6 months, and the average time from filing to board decision is 85.3 months, a figure officials said the satellite offices could help cut.
Officials estimated the office will pump more than $440 million into the state’s economy.