USPTO Performance and Accountability Report - U.S. Patent and ...

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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
processing of ex parte appeals. These new rules
streamline and simplify the appeal process, resulting
in greater efficiencies for both Appellants and the
Board. In preparation for the implementation of the
AIA, the PTAB wrote and published rules to implement
the new procedures, and developed systems
required to conduct Inter Partes Reviews, Post Grant
Reviews, the Transitional Program Review for Covered
Business Methods Patents, and Derivation Proceedings.
PTAB is currently on track to implement the AIA
on time.
The PTAB continues to improve communications
with the Patent organization. PTAB continued its
program where senior patent examiners are detailed
to the PTAB in order to develop a high-level understanding
of its operations, decision-making
processes, and constraints. Patent examiners are
detailed from the examination corps to work with
Administrative Patent Judges by researching both
technical and legal issues raised in appealed cases
and apply court decisions in legal analysis to assist
judges crafting quality decisions. PTAB continues to
liaise with USPTO technology center representatives
in order to enhance operational understanding
throughout the agency.
OBJECTIVE 6: Develop and implement the
patent end-to-end processing system
The USPTO is implementing a variety of IT initiatives to
improve our patent operations.
The Patent End-to-End (PE2E) and Patent Application
Text Initiative (PATI) will convert 55 million imagebased
pages into structured text. This effort will yield
eXtensible Markup Language (XML) text versions of
the key documents for the entire active patent
backfile. Upon completion, legacy tools will provide
the converted documents to all patent examiners for
seamless use within the legacy examination tools.
Furthermore, it lays the foundation for PE2E’s content
as PE2E grows to encompass the patent corps.
Universal Laptops (UL) have been deployed to patent
examiners. This 18-month effort was on time and on
budget, providing patent examiners with state-ofthe-art
laptops and collaboration tools to improve
productivity and facilitate telework and remote collaboration
through video conferencing and Voice over
Internet Protocol capabilities.
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board swearing-in ceremony held at the USPTO headquarters on March 1, 2012.
PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT: FISCAL YEAR 2012