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

to eliminate the “tail” of backlog applications,
positions the USPTO for further significant patent
pendency reductions in 2013.
The Trademark organization’s biggest long-term
challenge is to ensure that the investment being
made in information technology systems improves
our ability to serve a diverse applicant and registrant
base. Our ability to provide better tools will
support public education and outreach efforts to
deliver useful products and services. The strength of
the intellectual property system depends in part on
participation and the notice of marks in use that
comes from federal registration. We need to develop
systems and processes that make filing and maintaining
registrations more accessible, user-friendly,
and cost-effective that supports our outreach efforts
to work with and engage the small business, entrepreneurial,
and educational communities in the
value and benefits of trademark protection.
Maintaining record quality and pendency achievements,
given the uncertainty of trademark filings,
future revenues, and costs, remains a constant
challenge. The Trademark organization has achieved
an enviable record delivering consistent first-action
pendency of 2.5 to 3.5 months for more than five
years. This record has been achieved by carefully
managing monthly fluctuations in filings and by
planning an appropriately-sized staff to ensure sufficient
resources are available. Efficiency gains have
been realized through process improvement and
cost reduction, along with greater use of IT and
electronic communications.
Although first and final quality compliance rates are
very high, it remains a challenge to achieve them
on a consistent monthly basis. To sustain these high
performance levels, the Trademark organization has
set an even higher “exceptional” standard for evaluating
office actions. The new standard expands
upon the existing first and final action standards for
correct decision-making. It also includes excellent
evidentiary support and is “exceptionally” wellwritten.
The success of this initiative depends on
novel and focused training, best practice benchmarking,
and sharing new quality incentives,
sustained communication, and close collaboration
with key stakeholders.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
Manage and Execute to Goals
The USPTO’s promotion, protection, and enforcement
of IPR have never been more important to our
nation’s economic prosperity. The USPTO must
harness the expertise and skills within the agency
and leverage new technology to achieve its goals.
The actions we have taken to create a unified system
to deliver timely, high-quality patents and trademarks
must be carefully managed. The agency
continues to face the external pressures of increasing
application volume and rapid technology changes.
We will meet these challenges by continuing to
update our antiquated IT infrastructure as well as
hiring, retaining, and training examiners and
improving our operations to be more effective and
efficient. As we improve our agency, we must
continue to focus on building relationships with our
workforce, applicants, owners of patents and trademarks,
Congress, and the public.
Continue to Move to an Electronic Workplace
The Patent and Trademark organizations have made
significant progress to eliminate paper documents
and manual transactions from their processes.
Electronic communications are improving and
encouraging more applicants to do business electronically
by using Web-based systems. The Patent
and Trademark organizations now rely heavily on
data submitted or captured electronically to support
examination, publish documents, and issue registrations.
Because of the high degree of reliance on
electronic operations, both organizations are
dependent on the management and support of
internal IT systems and services to manage their
operations and provide services to the public.
The Patent and Trademark organizations, along with
the support of the OCIO, are working to address the
challenge of completing an electronic docket and
file management system for each organization.
These systems will link all operations and processing
that support core examination and post-issuance
activities. A fully electronic workflow will allow both
organizations to better manage the fluctuations in
filings and be more efficient, as well as timely, in
processing and responding to filings.
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