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More New Ways to Explore Patent Data
Blog by Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
Making patent data accessible to the public has been a cornerstone of this agency’s policy since its inception. I’m pleased to announce yet another step we’ve taken at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to make such data even easier for the public to understand and use, namely the addition of new features to our patent data visualization and analysis tool, PatentsView. First launched in 2014, PatentsView provides the public a variety of ways to interactively engage, through a web-based platform, the highest-quality patent data available. The underlying database connects 40 years’ worth of information about inventors, their organizations, and their locations in unprecedented ways. PatentsView is a key component of our open data efforts to improve the accessibility, usability, and transparency of U.S. patent data.
PatentsView’s newly revamped interface presents three new user-friendly starting points:
From these starting points, users can further explore comprehensive detail views for each patent, inventor, firm, and location. These interactive detail pages emphasize the interconnectedness of inventions, people, and firms. You can also access the data directly through an intuitive search and download system, via an application programming interface (API), or through bulk downloads.
You could argue that the innovations documented in our records may very well, collectively, constitute the world’s largest repository of scientific and technological knowledge. But the larger a data set, the more challenging it is to find useful information or trends or, put another way, to separate the signal from the noise. This collaborative tool, developed by the USPTO’s Office of the Chief Economist in conjunction with the American Institutes for Research, New York University, the University of California at Berkeley, Twin Arch Technologies, and Periscopic, aims to make that sorting and separation possible. The shared public and private effort in creating and improving the platform is symbolized in the “.org” domain of http://www.PatentsView.org.
By providing new tools and data to the public, PatentsView demonstrates this agency’s continuing commitment to open data, open government, and evidence-based policymaking.
Posted at 10:51AM Jan 12, 2017 in patents | Comments[1]
MyUSPTO: Your Personalized Homepage for USPTO Tasks
Guest blog by Chief Information Officer John B. Owens II
The USPTO recently launched a new tool to improve how you manage your intellectual property portfolio. With one single sign on, you can now track your patent and trademark applications, receive alerts when they are updated, and get other news from the USPTO.
MyUSPTO is your personalized homepage and gateway to all your USPTO business needs, and there is no cost to sign up and use the site. MyUSPTO allows you to access your patent and trademark applications in one central location, and also receive email notifications when the status changes on those applications. The site also allows you to save USPTO webpages as bookmarks, so you won’t need to save them separately in your own browser. Additionally, you can learn about current news, upcoming events, and connect with our Facebook and Twitter accounts on the MyUSPTO homepage. The site uses “widgets,” which are small applications that display snippets of important information; aka shortcuts to larger USPTO applications and affiliated sites. The entire site is fully customizable so you can add a little or as much as you prefer.
MyUSPTO simplifies, personalizes, and streamlines the public’s interactions with the USPTO. Future releases will gradually replace many of the credentials you use to sign in to our other systems with one secure, consolidated sign-in. The accounts are designed for individuals; however, future updates will add the ability for organizations to share information between colleagues.
Let us know your suggestions on how we can further improve the site through our MyUSPTO feedback forum on IdeaScale. I invite you to visit MyUSPTO, create an account, and check it out for yourself. I’m positive that it will be useful for your business needs. You can also visit our “What’s New” page to find out about future updates and improvements.
Posted at 02:51PM Jan 09, 2017 in USPTO | Comments[0]
USPTO Releases its 2016 Performance and Accountability Report
Guest Blog by Chief Financial Officer Tony Scardino
I’m pleased to announce that the USPTO has published its Performance and Accountability Report (PAR) for fiscal year (FY) 2016. The PAR serves as the USPTO’s annual report, similar to what private sector companies prepare for their shareholders. Each year the USPTO publishes this report to update the public on our performance and financial health.
Our PAR charts the agency’s progress toward meeting goals outlined in our 2014-2018 Strategic Plan: optimizing patent quality and timeliness; optimizing trademark quality and timeliness; and providing domestic and global leadership to improve intellectual property policy, protection, and enforcement worldwide. These goals govern the quality and quantity of our service to intellectual property stakeholders. In addition, the PAR provides information on the USPTO’s progress towards a broader management goal: achieving organizational excellence.
Here at the USPTO, we take pride in producing a PAR that meets the highest standards of transparency, quality, and accountability. The PAR contains a wealth of data and historical information of interest to our stakeholders, including data on patent and trademark examining activities, application filings, and agency staffing levels. This information is conveniently presented in the Workload Tables section at the end of the PAR.
On the issue of financial performance, FY 2016 marks the 24th consecutive year that the USPTO’s financial statements have received an unmodified audit opinion. Our clean audit opinion gives the public independent assurance that the information presented in the agency’s financial statements is fairly presented and follows generally accepted accounting principles. In addition, the auditors reported no material weaknesses in the USPTO’s internal controls, and no instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations affecting the financial statements.
While the PAR is a record of our achievements, it is also an honest discussion of the challenges we face as an agency moving forward in FY 2017. We will continue efforts in the Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative, which is a multifaceted initiative that builds on past efforts and includes future programs aimed at improving the accuracy, clarity, and consistency of patents; continue implementation of the patent dispute resolution portions of the AIA; meet the wave of legal challenges to the USPTO’s interpretation of the AIA and its regulations implementing the statute; develop outreach at both headquarters and regional offices; expand on dissemination of data; attain and maintain full sustainable funding; and provide IT support for a nationwide workforce with a “24/7/365” operational capability.
The PAR is a faithful snapshot of the USPTO’s FY 2016 performance. I hope you find value in this document, and that it allows you to glean greater insights into the agency’s activities and achievements.
Posted at 01:35PM Jan 04, 2017 in USPTO | Comments[0]
Better Protection for Industrial Designs through International Cooperation
Guest blog by Chief Policy Officer and Director for International Affairs Shira Perlmutter
Representatives from the USPTO and the intellectual property offices of the European Union, Japan, Korea, and China—which together account for more than 90 percent of the world’s design patent filings—convened in Beijing, China, November 1–2, 2016, for the second annual meeting of the Industrial Design Forum, or ID5.
The ID5 was formed in December 2015, with its inaugural meeting held at USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. Its goal is to improve consistency in registration policies for industrial designs and to facilitate progress on a range of matters that stakeholders around the world would like to see addressed. These include grace periods, partial designs, graphical user interfaces and icon designs, implementation of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Digital Access Service, and the standardization of design representations.
Because these offices handle such a large proportion of global industrial design filings, the ID5 forum can serve as an incubator for developing innovative responses to existing or future developments in the design area. Its work will promote greater efficiency, consistency, and effectiveness across the globe—both for applicants seeking protection for their industrial designs and for the offices tasked with administering the system.
The ID5 partners took an important step forward in November when they approved 12 projects aimed at studying key aspects of industrial design practice in each of their jurisdictions and coming up with concrete, user-friendly deliverables. The USPTO is co-leading four of the projects, including those on grace periods, partial designs, emerging technological designs, and the implementation of the WIPO’s Digital Access Service.
The ID5 partners also signed a joint statement affirming their commitment to further the development of improved industrial design protection systems, and unveiled the ID5 website, which will serve as a source of information for the public on ID5 projects, statistics, and events.
Since its launch a year ago, the ID5 forum has already proven to be a successful vehicle for enhancing the global industrial design framework. With industrial design having an ever-increasing importance in innovation, business, and trade, the USPTO’s work with its ID5 partners will enable a coordinated effort to address whatever challenges that owners and users of designs may confront.
Posted at 10:47AM Dec 27, 2016 in International Affairs | Comments[1]
USPTO Fights Fraudulent Trademark Solicitations
Guest blog by Commissioner for Trademarks Mary Boney Denison
The USPTO has worked hard to fight solicitations from companies fraudulently promising to protect trademarks, and we have taken a number of steps to help raise awareness of these schemes in an attempt to limit the number of victims defrauded. Our agency works closely with federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and the United States Postal Inspection Service to combat the problem.
The Department of Justice announced last week that two California men pled guilty in a mass-mailing scam that targeted owners of U.S. trademark applications. The men, Artashes Darbinyan and Orbel Hakobyan, admitted to stealing approximately $1.66 million from registrants and applicants of U.S. trademarks through companies called Trademark Compliance Center (TCC) and Trademark Compliance Office (TCO). The USPTO is proud to have cooperated with law enforcement agencies in the California case.
Trademark solicitations have been a global problem for decades, including for USPTO customers, and we have implemented several measures to protect our customers against them.
First, the USPTO includes a warning and a link to our Non-USPTO Solicitations page in each office action, urging our customers to carefully review all correspondence regarding their application to ensure that they are responding to an official document from the USPTO rather than a private company solicitation.
Second, a similar warning, on bright orange paper, is sent to every registrant when the USPTO mails the paper registration certificate to the registrant.
Third, the USPTO has several online resources alerting the public to these non-USPTO solicitations on our Non-USPTO Solicitations page, including a frequently updated list of fraudulent entities we’ve already identified. If you receive an invoice from a company not appearing on this list, we encourage you to email us copies of the notice and the envelope it came in at TMFeedback@uspto.gov so that we may assess whether to add it to the list.
A registered trademark is a valuable asset, and where there’s money, unfortunately, there are bound to be criminal elements lurking. The USPTO continues to provide its ongoing full support to U.S. law enforcement officials working on this issue.
Posted at 01:37PM Dec 21, 2016 in trademarks | Comments[3]
Trademarks Coast to Coast
Guest blog by Commissioner for Trademarks Mary Boney Denison
USPTO regional offices support the agency’s mission of fostering innovation by serving their regions’ intellectual property (IP) communities, assisting local businesses, and educating the public about the importance of IP. Regional office staff, in addition to USPTO trademark staff from headquarters, provide the public with full access to trademark information and resources in their local communities. This year, I visited all four regional offices: Denver and Silicon Valley in the fall, and Dallas and Detroit earlier in the year. During these visits, I had the chance to meet with USPTO employees, hear from local businesses, inventors, and IP practitioners about their concerns, and hold events on the importance of trademarks.
In September, I visited the Rocky Mountain Regional Office in Denver, where I got to see firsthand the vibrant IP community in the region, as well as the tireless work done by Director Molly Kocialski and the Denver office staff. I was excited to host the first interactive webcast trademark session in the Rocky Mountain region with USPTO trademark experts. With the help of representatives from the USPTO’s Trademark Assistance Center, we provided an overview of the trademark registration process and answered participants’ trademark questions. I also led an American Intellectual Property Association (AIPLA) Practitioner Roundtable, participated in a company listening tour, and provided important USPTO updates to area businesses.
I then visited the Silicon Valley Office in San Jose, California. Led by Director John Cabeca, the office has been busy supporting the active IP community and holding a variety of trademark events, from monthly lunch and learns to lectures on how to file international trademark applications under the Madrid Protocol. While in San Jose, I led an International Trademark Association (INTA) roundtable with Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) judge Francie Gorowitz, designed to offer insights into USPTO operations and help us better understand the needs of those using our services. I also spoke at World Congress’ Corporate IP Counsel Forum conference on updates to trademark law, and met with Playstation,® Visa,® and Carbon3D, a cutting edge 3-D printing company.
In February, I visited the Texas Regional Office in Dallas, led by Director Hope Shimabuku. The office has already been holding monthly “Meet the Trademark Experts” to address trademark questions from the community. With Director Shimabuku, I participated in the office’s first all-day trademark workshop for the public, where we discussed Trademarks 101, filing options, the petitions process, and recent Trademark Office developments. Over the summer, the Texas Regional Office also held an all-day conference in San Antonio for independent inventors, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. Trademark’s Managing Attorney for Educational Outreach Craig Morris and several other USPTO representatives participated in the event, where they discussed the trademark process, what happens after a trademark registers, and pitfalls to avoid when filing for a trademark registration.
In March, I visited the Elijah J. McCoy Midwest Regional Office in Detroit, which regularly holds trademark-focused lunch and learn events, and workshops on the basics of trademarks, trademark searching, and the Madrid Protocol. The office has also frequently held outreach events with representatives from the TTAB, including Chief Judge Rogers. During my visit, I joined Detroit’s Regional Director Dr. Christal Sheppard at the State Bar of Michigan’s Spring IP Seminar at Michigan State University. While in East Lansing, I spoke with students and professors at the Michigan State College of Law, and then held a Trademark Lunch and Learn in Detroit with sixty entrepreneurs.
Just like USPTO staff here at headquarters, regional office staff are dedicated, hard-working employees committed to the mission of the USPTO. During my trips this year, I’ve met with a number of USPTO trademark employees in the Telework Enhancement Act Pilot Program (TEAPP), learned about their day-to-day work to help the public, and also heard their valuable suggestions on improving the services the USPTO provides. Meeting with inventors, businesses, and IP practitioners in innovation communities across the country, I have gained a better understanding of the issues and challenges they face. I look forward to another great year working with the USPTO regional offices to support innovators even further.
Posted at 10:38AM Dec 08, 2016 in trademarks |
Providing Clear and Transparent Patent Quality Metrics
Guest blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Russ Slifer
It is critically important that the USPTO issue patents that are of the highest quality possible, and to accomplish this, we are taking measures to achieve greater accuracy, clarity, and consistency in examination and prosecution. One important component of this effort is providing metrics that are more clear and understandable to all our stakeholders. Based on public feedback, we established the Quality Metrics program, part of the USPTO’s ongoing Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative, designed to enhance the assessment of our work products and to more clearly communicate our quality measurements.
Early in the Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative, we received feedback that the Quality Composite Score we use to assess our examiners’ work was not sufficiently precise because it combined indicators of both work product quality as well as process quality into a single score. Therefore, we discontinued the Quality Composite Score and proposed a new approach to quality metrics in a Federal Register Notice in March 2016. Our new process, which is further explained on the Quality Metrics page of the USPTO website, will allow us to accurately measure quality by differentiating between work product metrics and efficiency of the examination process.
When assessing work products, the USPTO considers a quality patent to be one that is correctly issued in compliance with all the requirements of Title 35 as well as the relevant case law at the time of issuance. By analyzing work product indicators and by conducting reviews, we have developed new statutory compliance metrics, which we have published on the Correctness Indicator page of the USPTO website, along with information on how we developed these metrics. The webpage contains breakdowns, such as by office action type, allowing the general public to explore the data at varying levels of granularity. We also recently enhanced how clarity is evaluated during office action reviews, which you can read about in a recent blog by Director Lee.
To accurately assess the efficiency of the examination process, we are analyzing reopenings of prosecution and rework of office actions, as well as focusing on improving consistency of decision making. Using data from our Patent Application Location and Monitoring (PALM) system, we are able to identify trends in examiner behavior to determine where the process is working well and where there may be potential quality concerns. We can then determine which areas of the process can be streamlined, and what areas may require additional training, as well as identify best practices.
Our stakeholder feedback is of utmost importance to us, and we will continue to administer internal and external surveys on quality. We will continue to publish the results of the surveys, and will incorporate what we find into our training and continuing quality improvement efforts. As always, we are open to your suggestions on ways to improve our patent quality metrics, as we push to find new and innovative ways to improve patent quality at the USPTO.
Posted at 10:19AM Dec 06, 2016 in patents |
Patents for Humanity Award Recipients Honored for Work in Providing Global Disease Health Care Solutions
A post about the USPTO from the Department of Commerce
This year’s winners of the Patents for Humanity Award found new and innovative ways to administer and provide health care solutions in some of the most disadvantaged and underserved regions of the world. On November 16, four entities – a university, a federal agency, a business and a nonprofit– were recognized at the National Press Club for their work in tackling the global burden of disease and changing the world for the better.
Winners included Case Western Reserve University for a low-cost malaria detection device, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an improved meningitis vaccine, GestVision, Inc. for a quick diagnostic test for preeclampsia, and Global Good Fund at Intellectual Ventures for a cooler which can preserve vaccines for over a month with no outside power source. Read more about each of the award recipients.
Launched by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in February 2012 as part of an Obama administration initiative, the Patents for Humanity program promotes game-changing innovations that solve long-standing development challenges. The award is the USPTO’s top honor for recognizing patent owners and licensees who use game-changing technology to meet global humanitarian challenges. In addition to being recognized for their work, winners also receive accelerated processing of select matters at the USPTO.
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro spoke at the awards ceremony, stating: “There is no greater effort that the federal government can be involved in than the opportunity to save lives. Borders are irrelevant to disease, and projects like these help get a discovery to market where it can make a difference.”
“Altogether the work of our Patents for Humanity applicants and awardees proves that great things that can be accomplished when intellectual property rights and innovation work together to solve problems of a truly global scope, ” said Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Russ Slifer, who delivered remarks at the ceremony. “In addition to the very tangible benefits their inventions will deliver, they will also inspire others to bring the power of innovation to bear on more of the world’s most pressing humanitarian challenges.” Read Deputy Director Slifer’s full remarks.
Programs like Patents for Humanity help scale and incentivize innovation by spurring more game-changing work by the innovation community. The winners’ technologies and solutions show tomorrow’s scientists and engineers how the power of innovation can change the world for the better.
See a Facebook album of photos from the ceremony.
Posted at 12:30PM Dec 05, 2016 in patents |
USPTO Attachés: A Valuable Resource for U.S. Intellectual Property Interests Abroad
A post about the USPTO from the Department of Commerce
U.S. companies may understand how to handle their intellectual property (IP) interests within the United States, but selling products and being competitive in foreign markets with varied and unfamiliar local IP laws is a different ball game. Independent inventors and small and medium-sized entities may lack the in-house resources and expertise they need to deal with foreign IP regulations.
And today, looking after those IP assets is more important than ever: according to a recent estimate from the International Chamber of Commerce, the global value of counterfeit and pirated products could be as high as $1.8 trillion a year. This represents a huge loss of revenue.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) IP Attaché Program supports U.S. stakeholders that sell in foreign markets or want to enter them. These attachés are IP experts stationed at select U.S. embassies and consulates around the world, working directly with U.S. businesses on intellectual property issues—including helping to stop counterfeiting and piracy—while supporting U.S. efforts to improve IP laws internationally.
In addition, the attachés advocate for U.S. IP policies; coordinate training on IP protection matters; and work with judicial, administrative, legislative, and enforcement officers to assist U.S. businesses that own or use IP. Currently, the USPTO’s IP Attaché Program has 14 positions around the world.
Recently, one industry-leading furniture manufacturer from Tennessee with production capability in China learned the value of the assistance that the USPTO’s IP attachés can provide. The company ran into difficulties when one of its former original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) obtained 13 Chinese design patents and used them to block the company’s other OEMs from manufacturing and exporting products. Our IP attaché in Guangzhou met with the company’s CEO and provided information and guidance on patent invalidation proceedings and how to navigate China’s IP judicial system, and offered suggestions on working with local customs and government authorities. One week after the meeting, three containers of furniture were released for export by Chinese customs officers, and $3.5 million in orders were fulfilled.
Companies can also face dangers abroad even where their operations are exclusively domestic. For example Mabrey Products—a small U.S. company based in Chico, California, that designs and manufactures wooden urns for funeral homes—made the surprising discovery last year at a trade show in the United States that a Chinese vendor was displaying urns that were direct copies of Mabrey’s product line. The company’s owner turned to one of our IP attachés stationed in China, who was able to provide guidance on how the company could protect its IP against this Chinese vendor and other infringers.
Now, other countries and markets may operate differently, each having its own—and sometimes quite distinct—set of rules and regulations regarding IP. But these examples show that the USPTO’s IP Attaché Program is working throughout the world to help U.S. businesses and stakeholders. To find out more about the program and how it can help you, visit the IP Attaché Program page of the USPTO website. Additional information on how to protect or use IP abroad, including links to IP Toolkits for more than 20 countries and regions, can be found on the USPTO website.
Posted at 01:16PM Nov 29, 2016 in International Affairs |
Results of the Post Grant Outcomes Pilot
Guest blog by Chief Judge for the Patent and Trial Appeal Board David Ruschke and Commissioner for Patents Drew Hirshfeld
As part of the USPTO’s ongoing Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative, in April 2016 we launched the Post Grant Outcomes Pilot, focused on pending patent applications that are related to issued patents undergoing an America Invents Act (AIA) trial proceeding before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). We’d like to report that the Post Grant Outcomes Pilot has succeeded in making examiners aware of patents related to applications they are examining that are involved in PTAB trials, and in turn has facilitated the timely and effective examination of applications.
AIA trial proceedings contain prior art and arguments that might be highly relevant to the patentability determination of related applications currently under examination. This pilot was intended to help examiners harness the art presented during AIA trials to enhance examination of a related application, so they could reach more expeditious decisions on patentability.
During the pilot, we notified examiners via email when they had an application related to an AIA trial, and we streamlined access to the contents of the trial by pinpointing for examiners the most relevant documents. We then surveyed the examiners to gain detailed feedback.
The survey results showed that our examiners found the PTAB information—especially the initial petition (including the prior art citations), the PTAB’s institution decision, and any expert declarations—to be highly useful. We also found that 46% of the examiners referred to at least one reference cited in the AIA trial petition during the examination of their own case, either by citing it in a rejection or as pertinent prior art. If an examiner did not use or cite the prior art from the trial, it was most likely because the claims were different between the “parent” and the “child” case, the examiner disagreed with the AIA petitioner’s analysis of the prior art and/or claims, or the examiner was able to find better art.
To further facilitate the process, in August 2016 we deployed an upgrade to examiners’ desktop application viewers which allows automated access to the contents of related AIA trials, including access to the entire file, and any cited prior art.
Our next objective with regards to the post grant outcomes process is to identify examination best practices or deficiencies that we can address through additional examiner training. To accomplish this, we are currently analyzing data gathered about the AIA trials with respect to prior art searching and claim interpretation, and are also working to thoroughly analyze how PTAB trials impact related applications.
Our final objective is to provide examiners with a periodic review of post-grant outcomes focused on Supreme Court, Federal Circuit, district court, and PTAB decisions that relate to their specific technological area. It is our hope that by providing this information, examiners will gain a better understanding of the current state of the law and what happens to a patent after it leaves the USPTO.
We are dedicated to ensuring examiners have all pertinent information, especially post grant outcomes information, easily and readily available, in order to issue the highest quality patents possible and enhance patent quality overall. Based on the program’s initial results, we can already see that our examiners are benefitting, and we will continue to identify additional ways to improve our processes.
Posted at 11:10AM Nov 22, 2016 in patents |
Optimizing Patent Examination Time
Guest Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director Russ Slifer
The USPTO is committed to issuing the highest quality patents possible, as evidenced by our Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative (EPQI). An important part of this effort is evaluating our patent examination time goals with the help of the public.
Examination time goals, which vary by technology, represent the average amount of time a patent examiner is expected to spend examining an application. Because examination time goals impact both patent pendency and quality, we want to ensure that our examination time goals accurately reflect the amount of time needed by examiners to conduct quality examination. A critical part of our efforts is obtaining stakeholder input.
The last assignment of expectancies for examination time was over 40 years ago. Since then, circumstances have required occasional adjustments and establishment of new goals for emerging technologies. There has not been, however, a comprehensive reevaluation of examination time since those expectancies were established. Since the examination time goals were originally assigned, significant changes to the examination process have occurred, including increased use of electronic tools, changes in law due to court decisions, a growing volume of prior art, and progress in technology which results in increasingly complex subject matter in applications.
One of the most significant changes has been the USPTO’s transition from the United States Patent Classification (USPC) system, used to categorize patents to facilitate prior art searches by examiners, to the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system, an international, flexible and highly specific classification scheme. Because the current examination time goals were assigned based on the USPC system, implementation of the CPC system and the other significant changes to the examination process have caused us to reconsider and reassess the assignments of examination time goals.
As part of the EPQI, we are assessing the relationship between examination time and value-added examination activities, such as enhancing the clarity of the record with respect to claim interpretation, interview summaries, and reasons for allowance. All of these factors warrant a reevaluation of our examination time goals.
Internally at the USPTO, we’ve established teams to take a look at the impacts of both the transition to the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system and the EPQI programs on examination time. We are also developing, in collaboration with the examiners’ union, surveys on examination time that will be available for all Examiners and Supervisory Patent Examiners to complete in early 2017.
The public can provide us their input on examination time goals in several ways. On October 25, 2016, we published a Federal Register Notice to announce our effort, and we are accepting comments by email ExternalExaminationTimeStudy@USPTO.GOV or through our Ideascale site until January 30, 2017.
We are also holding roundtables in all of our offices across the country. We held our first roundtable on November 14 in Alexandria, VA. As a participant on the Alexandria panel, I had the opportunity to hear directly from many stakeholders about their interests and priorities with respect to examination time goals and quality, pendency, and cost for services.
Our next roundtable will take place on November 29 in Dallas, followed by roundtables in Detroit and Denver on December 15, and Silicon Valley on January 11. For more information on how to participate in these events, visit the Examination Time Analysis page of the USPTO website.
We look forward to hearing from you to help us guide the development and implementation of our new examination time goals.
Posted at 10:24AM Nov 21, 2016 in patents |
New Trademark App Open Source Code on Github
Guest blog by Chief Technology Officer David Chiles
Improving the way the government delivers information technology (IT) solutions to its customers isn’t just a goal, it’s our mission. We at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office know that by publishing our open source code, the public can help us come up with new and better IT solutions. In advance of the new Federal Source Code Policy and in support of the Administration’s Open Government Initiative, we have been publishing content on Github for over a year, and it now includes source code for a mobile application for trademarks.
The new published source code on Github is for a sample application enabling a user to access and track the status of a trademark. This application enables the user to receive a push notification anytime the status of a trademark application changes. The idea for this app began with feedback from the leadership in Trademarks, and we believe that it will also be a useful tool for our own employees. We’re making our code for this application open to the public, so you can also use it in your own projects, improve it so it works best for you, or create an entirely new application.
Through our Open Data and Mobility Program, we’ve already made over 200 years of intellectual property information available to the public, and have published application program interfaces (APIs) so you can more easily search, use, and manipulate patent and trademark information. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to use our data.
As America’s Innovation Agency, we hope that our open source initiatives will spur innovation and create new ideas. We are looking to the public to come up with the next greatest idea, like we recently did through our Cancer Moonshot Challenge.
Let us know how you like our Trademark app, and keep an eye on our Github page as we’ll be publishing more and more open source projects.
Posted at 03:03PM Nov 15, 2016 in trademarks |
Celebrating Veterans at the USPTO
Guest blog by Chief Administrative Officer Fred Steckler
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” Thomas Jefferson once wrote.
In the United States that price has been paid by generations of veterans at home and abroad, in peacetime and war – selfless citizens who have sacrificed their time, comfort, and even their lives in defense of our nation and our allies.
At the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today, we are privileged to have many such veterans among us. Some have served in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, and Vietnam. Some are serving still, in the reserves, attending monthly drills and annual training and deploying into harm’s way when needed.
In 2012, we embarked on a bold initiative to greatly expand our outreach to the veteran and service member communities and significantly increase our numbers of veteran hires. Since then we have added over 600 veterans across all business units to our USPTO family. In fiscal year 2016 alone, over 23% percent of new patent examiner hires and 20% of all other new hires were veterans or transitioning service members. These impressive numbers would not have been possible without a work environment that values and honors our veterans. And that environment would not have been possible without an agency leadership committed, from the very start, to President Obama’s Veterans Employment Initiative.
We are also extremely fortunate to have the USPTO Military Association (UMA), an affinity group comprised of veterans, spouses of veterans, and employees who support our veterans, those still serving in the reserves, and the entire USPTO community. Since its formation in late 2011, the UMA has done tremendous work providing mentorship and fellowship for our agency’s military veterans and raised overall awareness of veterans and those in service today. Without them we would not have agency-wide events like our annual Memorial Day observation or the Veterans Day ceremony we held on November 8 with guest speaker Dave Lavery of NASA.
So on behalf of our entire USPTO leadership team, I want to thank our veterans for their service and for “Continuing to Serve” – to quote the UMA’s motto – at America’s Innovation Agency.
Posted at 03:33PM Nov 10, 2016 in USPTO |
Collegiate Inventors Competition Showcases Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs
A post about the USPTO from the Department of Commerce
Standing on stage this past Friday, inventors from colleges and universities across the country were recognized for their work developing cutting-edge inventions, at the 2016 Collegiate Inventors Competition (CIC) at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in Alexandria, VA. Through CIC, the skills that these students have gained both through the process of invention and by learning about intellectual property will be an asset to them as they decide on their next steps, which could be further research or commercializing their invention. “The ideas represented in this room—and the bright minds behind them—are the present and future of America innovation,” said Drew Hirshfeld, Commissioner for Patents at the USPTO.
The 28 undergraduate and graduate students all had the chance to interact one-on-one with inductees of the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF). These established inventors – who have invented many tools, processes, or devices that are now commonplace in our lives, such as the digital camera, microprocessor, electret microphone, and the implantable defibrillator – served as judges for the competition and provided advice and inspiration for the students. USPTO officials and AbbVie Foundation scientists also served as judges.
The finalists showcased their inventions at a public expo, providing them with a professional backdrop to answer questions and discuss their inventions with USPTO patent examiners, patent attorneys, and trademark examiners, senior officials, corporate sponsors, and members of the intellectual property community and the public. “We consistently hear from finalists that their CIC experience was the inspiration for seeing themselves as great innovators. It’s also why they continued on as entrepreneurs, business owners, and patent holders. We look forward to seeing many more patent and trademark applications with their names on them in the years ahead,” said Hirshfeld.
CIC finalists’ inventions included a variety of technologies from advanced crop harvesting techniques for use on earth and other planets, to a bladeless drone, to a fire extinguishing ball. Medical innovations included adjustable prosthetics, hydrogels for ocular drug delivery, early cervical cancer detection methods, technology for freezing breast cancer cells, more sterile catheters, and DNA powered diagnostics. Many of these medical innovations were designed to help people in lower-middle-income countries. Several CIC finalists have already been granted patents or have filed patent applications.
The winner in the undergraduate category was a team from University of Virginia, comprised of Payam Pourtaheri and Ameer Shakeel. Their invention, AgroSpheres, re biological particles that degrade residual pesticides on the surface of plants, allowing crops to be safely harvested after just a few hours. This helps farmers avoid crop loss due to unforeseen weather events and at the same time saves the environment from additional pesticides.
The graduate winner was Carl Schoellhammer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for SuonoCalm, a device for at-home rapid administration of therapeutics. SuonoCalm is designed to deliver a wide range of medications directly into tissue using low frequency ultrasound. Tests have shown superior absorption and it takes just one minute. Read more about all the 2016 CIC finalists and winners.
The top undergraduate winner and top graduate winner each received $10,000. Second and third place winners were also recognized with cash and prizes.
The Collegiate Inventors Competition is one of several important programs the USPTO conducts in collaboration with NIHF. Others include Invention Playground for preschool children, Camp Invention and Club Invention for elementary school children and Invention Project for middle school students. Altogether, NIHF programs reach hundreds of thousands of young Americans every year, promoting a better understanding of the vital role intellectual property and innovation play in our lives and our economy, and helping build entrepreneurial skills for the next generation of inventors.
View a USPTO Facebook album of photos from CIC.
Posted at 04:16PM Nov 09, 2016 in USPTO |
Results of the Clarity of the Record Pilot
Blog by Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
I’m pleased to report that we have completed the Clarity of the Record Pilot launched earlier this year as part of our Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative. We’ve achieved our goal of identifying some best practices for enhancing the clarity of various aspects of the prosecution record. These include best practices for documenting the USPTO’s positions with respect to claim interpretation, reasons for allowance, and interview summaries as well as encouraging examiners to initiate pre-search interviews when needed to gain a better understanding of the claimed invention. I would like to fill you in on some of our findings, and also encourage you to attend our day-long patent quality conference on December 13, where we will report in detail on the progress of the dozen or so programs in the Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative.
Through this pilot, we identified the following best practices as key drivers for clarity and trained our examiners on these practices:
For interview summaries, providing:
For reasons for allowance:
For claim interpretation:
As a result of this pilot, we found there is progress to be made in the treatment of 35 USC 112(f) limitations, interview summaries, and reasons for allowance, while our highest clarity was in the area of 35 USC 102 and 103 rejections. Going forward, we plan to continue increasing clarity in all aspects of our practice.
Overall, we measured 68 unique data points, each data point representing a different best practice for achieving clarity. We found that on average, pilot examiners used 14% more of these best practices in pilot cases as compared to control cases, and this increased use of best practices contributed to an increase in overall clarity in pilot cases. Notably, we found that in pilot cases examiners employed:
Also, we found that pilot participants carried on using the best practices they learned in the pilot, even to applications not in the pilot program. This is a strong indication that the examiners embraced the training. We also had anecdotal evidence that pilot participants encouraged fellow, non-pilot examiners to use the best practices during the prosecution of their own cases. Clearly the pilot participants saw a value to using these best practices when examining applications.
The Clarity of the Record Pilot ran from March 6 to August 20 of this year. To ensure a diverse pool of examiners, we invited randomly selected utility patent examiners with at least two years of patent examining experience to participate. All told, 125 examiners representing all utility technology centers participated, and roughly two-thirds of these participants were primary examiners.
The pilot kicked off with initial training in the form of four different modules – an initial module to provide participants with an overview of the pilot and three modules to provide identified best practices to enhance clarity with respect to the pilot’s three focus areas – claim interpretation, reasons for allowance and interview summaries. All of the modules started with a discussion about the goals of the pilot and the importance of clarity of the record.
Pilot participants were expected to use identified best practices when drafting office actions for a select number of cases. In addition, throughout the pilot, participants attended meetings (called “quality enhancement meetings”) to discuss interesting takeaways with fellow pilot participants. The quality enhancement meetings were typically held with examiners working within similar technologies; however, there were also pilot-wide meetings involving invited speakers, including a judge from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and the Commissioner for Patents, who shared their perspective on the importance of clarifying the prosecution record. Participants also met biweekly with a pilot manager to receive one-on-one training and to consult on lessons learned.
To evaluate the pilot, the Office of Patent Quality Assurance reviewed the clarity of approximately 2,600 cases for a statistical assessment of whether the best practices of the pilot improved the clarity of office actions. In addition, we analyzed feedback from the quality enhancement meetings and training sessions, including a list of best practices developed by the pilot participants. Using this information, we identified the best practices that were key drivers of overall clarity. Based on the results from the pilot program, we are analyzing the data to provide recommendations on implementation of the pilot’s best practices across the patent examining corps.
Please join us at our patent quality conference on December 13, where we will share more details and results on the Clarity of the Record Pilot and other EPQI programs.
Posted at 10:58AM Nov 08, 2016 in patents | Comments[1]