Patent Performance

The principal function of the Patent organization is the examination of an inventor's application for a patent. Patent examiners make a determination, as defined in the Patent statutes, of the patentability of the claimed subject matter in a patent application by comparing the claimed subject matter to a large body of technological information to determine whether the claimed invention is new, useful, and non-obvious to someone knowledgeable in that subject matter. In addition to the examination and the preparation of correspondence during the examination of the application, examiners are also responsible for preparing examiner's answers on applications appealed to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI), preparing interference proceedings to determine priority of invention, and preparing Search Reports and International Preliminary Examination Reports in PCT applications.

At the front end of the examination process, in fiscal year 2004, the Patent organization received 353,342¹ Utility, Plant, and Reissue (UPR) patent applications, 23,468¹ Design applications, as well as 45,396¹ PCT applications. This represents a 6 percent increase over fiscal year 2003 UPR filings; a 6.8 percent increase over fiscal year 2003 design applications; and a 5.6 percent increase over fiscal year 2003 PCT applications. The Office of Initial Patent Examination performs an initial administrative review of the newly filed applications. Additionally, 102,278¹ provisional applications were received.¹

At the back end of the process, 170,637 UPR and 16,533 PCT patents were granted in fiscal year 2004, and 248,561 pending applications were published, as provided for in the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999. The Office of Patent Publications performs post-examination processing of allowed applications and disseminates published applications and issued patents to the public.¹

Additional offices within the Patent organization perform various activities to support the patent process. The Office of Patent Quality Assurance performs a quality review function, comprising reviews of a random sample of both in-process and allowed applications. The Office of Patent Training coordinates the development of curriculums and deployment of training throughout the Patent organization. PCT Operations and the PCT Legal Administration Office administer the processing of international patent applications. The Search and Information Resources Administration supports examination processes by managing all Patent IT activities, implementing and maintaining classification schemes for organizing and retrieving information contained in patents and other documents in the search files, and acquiring, maintaining, and providing access to scientific and technical literature.

In fiscal year 2004, the Patent organization achieved its e-Government 21st Century Strategic Plan objectives and made significant strides in addressing its quality initiatives. All patent examiners, technical support staff, and others throughout the Patent organization are working from an image-based system.

Quality is the most important component of the 21st Century Strategic Plan and the Patent organization has implemented several quality initiatives, including an enhanced Quality Assurance Program that includes end product reviews, in-process reviews, and enhanced “second pair of eyes” reviews. The feedback from these reviews is used to identify and develop training and other quality enhancements. Additionally, to ensure that our primary patent examiners maintain the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) necessary to perform a high quality examination, the USPTO implemented a recertification program requiring that primary examiners be recertified once every three years. A certification testing program was also implemented for junior examiners to ensure that they have the required KSAs prior to promotion to the level where they are given legal and negotiation authority. First-line supervisors were trained to increase the effectiveness of work product reviews and coaching skills. Additionally, the Patent organization established a quality review process for review of the work of the technical support staff.

	Under Secretary Dudas demonstrates the Public PAIR system at a ceremony celebrating IFW, and access to IFW through public PAIR.

The USPTO successfully completed deployment of the patent IFW system in August, 2004, whereby 88 percent of patent applications are electronically processed, exceeding the fiscal year 2004 goal to electronically manage 70 percent of patent applications undergoing examination. All incoming and outgoing paper documents are captured electronically in the system and the last remaining pending paper applications will be scanned into the system by the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2005, with the electronic version of an application now considered the official file. In addition to IFW, the Patent organization no longer mails paper U.S. references to applicants, instead making the information available to applicants via the Internet. Additionally, for the first time, anyone with Internet access anywhere in the world can now use USPTO's website (www.uspto.gov) to track the status of a public patent application as it moves from pre-grant publication to final disposition and to review documents in the official application file, including all decisions made by patent examiners and their reasons for making them. The system, known as PAIR, offers the public an advanced electronic portal for PDF viewing, downloading and printing an array of information and documents for patent applications not covered by confidentiality laws. Public PAIR also offers a quick-click feature for ordering certified copies of patent applications and application files.

In furtherance of our goal to increase the number of applications filed electronically, in fiscal year 2004 the Patent organization conducted the first e-Filing forum. This event established a user's group of customers who will provide input on how our e-Filing system can better meet their needs.

With the implementation of the 21st Century Strategic Plan, the USPTO will reduce patent pendency and substantially cut the size of our work backlog. Ultimately, this will be accomplished through a radical redesign of the entire patent search and examination system based upon multi-examination tracks, competitively sourcing the search function, hiring sufficient numbers of new patent examiners, and variable, incentive-driven fees. In fiscal year 2004, we hired 443 new UPR examiners and 15 design patent examiners for a net increase of 118 in the size of the examining corps.

Specific performance results related to the Patent organization goals and measures are as follows:

Under the 21st Century Strategic Plan, the Patent organization will improve the quality of our products and services using in-depth reviews of work in progress and enhanced end-process reviews to provide feedback to examiners on areas for improvement, targeted training, and safeguards to ensure competencies. The following performance measure has been established to reflect the USPTO's success and progress in meeting the Strategic Plan goal supporting the quality theme.

MEASURE: Patent Allowance Error Rate

In support of the 21st Century Strategic Plan, the USPTO will reduce patent pendency and substantially cut the size of the work backlog. The two primary measures of Patent organization processing time are: (1) first action pendency, which measures the average time in months from filing until an examiner's initial determination is made of the patentability of an invention; and (2) total pendency, which measures the average time in months from filing until the application issues as a patent or the application is abandoned by the applicant.

		USPTO experts review and respond to questions during an Inventors Online discussion.

MEASURE: Reduce average first action pendency (months)

MEASURE: Reduce average total pendency (months)

MEASURE: Efficiency

Footnotes:

1. All data reported in these paragraphs are preliminary. (back to text)