Streamlining the Patent Application Process to Nurture the Innovation of Tomorrow
Summary
To clear a path for the innovations that will fuel our nation’s economic recovery, the Biden-Harris Administration should streamline the patent application process by improving the correspondence between patent claims and the specification, supporting search clarity, and ensuring concise specifications. Not only would this reduce the time lost to bureaucratic paperwork, but these efforts would also give innovators a more efficient road to acquire patents. In turn, applicants, examiners, and the public at large would benefit from the new industries and innovations to come.
These fellows will be working to turn ambitious ideas into actionable policy – from improving how frontier AI models are evaluated for government use to strengthening biosecurity protections and building the workforce needed to keep AI systems safe.
AI’s high-stakes outputs directly shape American economic, industrial, and technological outcomes. They must not be accepted entirely on the basis of institutional faith rather than verifiable evidence.
The clearinghouse will also neutrally mediate the assignment of auditors to audits—strengthening independence, trust, and ethical governance across the AI ecosystem.
Soft law was never meant to be a permanent solution. Treating it as one, and letting the sandcastle stand in for the skyscraper indefinitely, is how we end up with a decade of voluntary commitments and no enforceable accountability to show for it.