Executive Summary -

The patent application examination requirement is statutory based rather than a Constitutional requirement. For instance, from 1793 to 1836, the U.S. Patent System operated on a registration system without examination. Since the passage of the Leahy– Smith America Invents Act (AIA), the number of new patent applications filed each year has exceeded 500,000, while the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is reversing Patent Office Examiners’ approvals at a staggeringly high rate.