In its Strategic Plan 2010-2015, the USPTO makes clear that a strategic goal is to optimize patent quality and timeliness.

FORBES: The Patent Office Dilemma: How Congress Robs Peter to Pay Paul

What China already has is a new-found confidence among its up and coming local entrepreneurs, successful serial entrepreneurs, a government that is pushing forward the innovation agenda and providing financial incentives for startups, an upsurge in new, higher-quality patent applications, and a large market with unique needs.

FORBES: What China Startups Need To Get to Apple Level

Intellectual property wonks are constantly griping about the quality of patent reviews performed by examiners working for the U.S. government.

FORBES: USPTO In New Push To Improve Quality Of Patent Exams

Proxy measures of creativity, such as patent awards, the quality of universities, the numbers of films and videos, are all strongly in America's favour.

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne

Because the perceived quality of patent awards has deteriorated--critics complain that they were given almost indiscriminately to dot-coms for only the slightest changes in prior art--even minor patent applications must be carefully (and expensively) vetted by patent lawyers as protection against lawsuits by aggrieved patent holders.

FORBES: The smother of invention

This would help to measure the quality of the patent system itself, and offer some way of evaluating whether it is working to promote innovation, or to impede it.

ECONOMIST: Intellectual property

It had previously used the patent to "produce preview images of acceptable quality" while in live view mode to secure a licensing deal with Samsung.

BBC: Kodak suffers image preview patent ruling setback

The general idea behind the overhaul is to establish better-quality patents and to reduce the number of patent lawsuits.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Pegasus' patent-pending device allows consumers to wirelessly stream DVD-quality video content from the Internet in real-time to a TV elsewhere in their house.

FORBES: Magazine Article