Latest Development about IP5 Offices(5)

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is a leader in promoting effective and balanced intellectual property protection worldwide. The USPTO's mission is to foster innovation, competitiveness, and economic growth, domestically and abroad, by delivering high quality and timely examination of patent and trademark applications, guiding domestic and international intellectual property policy, and delivering intellectual property information and education worldwide, with a highly-skilled, diverse workforce.

The USPTO is committed to reduce the excess inventory of unexamined patent applications and pendency and has implemented various initiatives, pilots, and operational improvements. The USPTO attaches great importance to international collaboration and launched several key initiatives to help attain the goal of issuing quality, timely patents. Together with the EPO, the USPTO is engaging other IP offices to expand the usage of CPC and to explore future enhancements to the CPC system.

The USPTO continues to leverage work-sharing opportunities through programs like the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) to contribute to reduced processing time. The United States is one of 19 offices currently accepting PPH requests by using this framework.

In terms of processing applications, first action pendency has been reduced to 18.3 months, whereas average total pendency has fallen to approximately 26.9 months. The current plan is to further reduce those periods to 11.3 and 21.0 months, respectively, by FY 2018.

The USPTO quality measurement has been expanded and made more transparent. The agency has redoubled its efforts to train its patent examiners, to ensure they stay abreast of the latest developments in the law and technology. By providing effective training throughout an examiners career, the USPTO further enhances patent examination fundamentals, legal nuances, communication, and cooperation between the examiner and applicant.

To further address the issue of quality, the USPTO recently launched the Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative.

The new initiative is built around three core elements: excellence in prosecution services，excellence in customer service and excellence in quality measurement. All options are being considered—large and small—before examination, during examination, and after examination, to include increasing resources to patent examiners as well as comparing best practices with IP5 offices and other offices around the world.

The USPTO also recognizes that the public can and should play an important role in creating a better patent system, which is why the USPTO expanded its outreach around the country by holding roadshows and roundtables and engaging stakeholders in an open discussion with the USPTO patent staff.

The USPTO is committed to making great strides and improvements in the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in the future. The USPTO looks forward to building a world-class intellectual property system; and to do so in collaboration with all of the partner offices throughout the world for the benefit of all.