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United States Patent and Trademark Office Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2003 Management Discussion and Analysis |
Patent PerformanceThe core process of the Patent Organization is the examination of an inventors application for a patent by comparing the claimed subject matter of the application 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 the course of examining a patent application, a patent examiner makes a determination on the patentability of the claimed subject matter. Examiners are also responsible for preparing examiners answers on appealed applications and preparing interference proceedings to determine priority of ownership. Other phases of the examination process include: pre-examination, where the application receives an initial administrative review; post-examination, where the published application or issued patent is disseminated to the public; and a quality review function, which reviews a random sample of both in-process and allowed applications. Additionally, the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) office administers the processing of international patent applications. The Search and Information Resources Administration is responsible for managing all Patent automation activities, implementing and maintaining classification schemes for organizing and retrieving technical information contained in patents and other documents in the search files, and acquiring, maintaining, and providing access to scientific and technical literature in support of the examination process. The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) conducts interference proceedings, as well as decides appeals regarding issues of patentability. In FY 2003, the Patent Organization received 333,452 Utility, Plant, and Reissue patent applications. Additionally, preliminary data indicates that 243,007 pending applications were published within 18 months after filing and 173,072 patents were granted. The Patent Organization made significant strides towards achieving the e-Gov and quality goals of the 21st Century Strategic Plan by implementation of the Image File Wrapper (IFW) and quality initiatives. The IFW is an electronic version of the paper patent application file wrapper, and is created by scanning all papers in the file wrapper using a modified version of the software initially developed by the EPO. The IFW provides instant and concurrent access to a patent application, eliminates examiner interruption for paper entry, and eliminates lost or damaged papers from paper patent applications. The IFW has already been deployed to the Office of Initial Patent Examination and portions of the Patent Examination Corps, with an expectation of full deployment by October 2004. As a result, over 225,000 electronic applications are now considered the official file, and all newly filed patent applications are now processed in an electronic environment. The quality initiatives implemented by the Patent Organization include: a pre-employment assessment of communication skills for new hires through oral interviews and writing samples, supervisory training for effective work product reviews, redesigning the quality review process by expanding in process reviews, pilot training programs in art units for new examiners, and finalizing the process for certifying the formal knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) required of examination staff at various stages of their careers. The Patent Organization quality initiatives will ensure the highest quality patent examination possible by certifying that patent examiners, supervisory patent examiners, and quality assurance specialists have the requisite skills by providing the most pertinent and up-to-date training and enhanced review processes. Specific performance results related to the Patent Organization goals and measures are as follows: GOAL: AGILITY Address the 21st Century Economy by Becoming a More Agile OrganizationUnder the 21st Century Strategic Plan, the USPTO will work with our IP partners to improve the efficiency of our processing systems by increasing the number of applications and communications received and processed electronically, create more coordinated and streamlined work processes, and best position the USPTO for the globalization that characterizes the 21st century economy. The following performance measure has been established to reflect the USPTOs success and progress in meeting the 21st Century Strategic Plan goals for agility. NEW MEASURE: Applications Filed ElectronicallyGOAL: CAPABILITY Enhance the Quality through Workforce and Process ImprovementsUnder the 21st Century Strategic Plan, Patents will enhance current quality assurance programs to include a more in-depth review of work in progress. This will include the implementation of in-process reviews, second pair of eyes reviews, and end-process reviews. In addition, the Patent Organization is creating new programs for certifying the KSAs of their employees. With the 21st Century Strategic Plan, the USPTO developed a number of new measures to assess its achievement toward the capability goals. For those new measures, the USPTO will need to establish its baseline performance during FY 2004 before establishing its out-year targets and annual goals. MEASURE: Improve the quality of patents by reducing the error rate
The USPTO fell short of its FY 2003 target; however, under the 21st Century Strategic Plan, the Patents Organization is enhancing current quality assurance programs to include a more in-depth review of work in progress. DISCONTINUED MEASURE IN FY 2003: Improve overall customer satisfaction
GOAL: PRODUCTIVITY Accelerate Processing Times Through Focused ExaminationIn support of the 21st Century Strategic Plan, the USPTO will reduce patent pendency and substantially cut the size of the work backlog. This will be accomplished through a radical redesign of the entire patent search and examination system based upon multi-examination tracks, greater reliance on commercial service providers, and variable, incentive-driven fees. While the USPTOs long-term patent pendency goal remains 18 months, this goal will not be achieved in the near future because of the higher priority placed on quality and patent e-Gov initiatives. However, USPTO will produce, on average, a first Office action for first-filed U.S. non-provisional applications at the time of 18-month publication. In addition, a patent search report for other patent applications will be issued in the same time frame. The two primary measures of Patent Organization processing time are: (1) first action pendency, which measures the average time in months until an examiners initial determination is made of the patentability of an invention; and (2) total pendency, which measures the average time in months until an examiner either allows the patent to issue or the application is abandoned by the applicant. MEASURE: Reduce average first action pendency (months)
MEASURE: Reduce average total pendency (months)
NEW MEASURE: Efficiency
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