Ramping up patent-office staffing and laws should help avert lawsuits and speed up the U.S. patent-filing process, acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank says. "Higher-quality patents means less legal challenges. Faster patents [also] often mean less legal challenges, because oftentimes the longer it takes to get a patent the more other people are encroaching on the space, so speed and quality are two things I think this legislation and these new offices are going to help us achieve," Blank says.