AS President Obama and Congress search for ways to jump-start job creation in our stalled economy, their best strategy may be right under their noses  in the voluminous backlogged files of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

This is the agency, after all, that issues the patents that technology startups and other small businesses need to attract venture capital to pay salaries. Three-fourths of executives at venture capital-backed startups say patents are vital to getting financing, according to the 2008 Berkeley Patent Survey, a national study of patents and entrepreneurship. And startups are responsible for almost all the new jobs created in the United States since 1977, according to a study by the Kauffman Foundation.

Unfortunately, since 1992, Congress has diverted more than $750 million in patent fees to other purposes. That has left the patent office itself underfinanced and burdened with a backlog of 1.2 million applications awaiting examination, more than half of which have not had even a first review.

To revitalize America’s engine of entrepreneurship  and create as many as 2.5 million jobs in the next three years  Congress should, first, give the patent office a $1 billion surge to restore it to proper functioning. This would enable the agency to upgrade its outmoded computer systems and hire and train additional examiners to deal with the threefold increase in patent applications over the past 20 years. Congress should also pass pending legislation that would prohibit any more diverting of patent fees and give the office the authority to set its own fees.