IP Section Colorado Bar Association

1. IP Section Colorado Bar Association Robert Stoll Commissioner for Patents United States Patent and Trademark Office 1

2. In Support of Innovation • President Obama supports: “An innovation agenda must… remove bureaucratic barriers to entrepreneurs by making our patent process more efficient and reliable.” • Support from Department of Commerce, Secretary Gary Locke who committed, “My top priority for the USPTO—dramatically reducing the unacceptably long time it takes to process patent applications.” 2

3. Strategic Priorities • Reduce Patent Pendency and Backlogs • Improve Quality of Examination • Improve/Enhance Patent Appeal and Post-Grant Processes • Demonstrate Global Leadership in all Aspects of IP Policy Development • Improve Information Technology Infrastructure and Tools • Secure a Sustainable Funding Model, and • Improve Relations with Employees and Stakeholders 3

4. Strategic Goals Achieve First Office Action on the Merits within 10 months. And reduce overall pendency to 20 months. Our work has been focused on: • increasing collaboration and transparency with our stakeholders; • making changes to processes, policies and procedures; and • continuing work sharing efforts with global partners. 4

5. Stakeholder Relationships Creating a two-way dialogue, and soliciting feedback. • Providing Information • Directors Blog, webinars and online chats • Independent Inventor Conference, and Inventor’s Eye publication • Patent Examiner Technical Training Program (PETTP) • Policy guidelines • Data Visualization Center • Gathering Information • Roundtables • Public Comment requests 5

6. Patents Dashboard 6

7. Reducing Pendency and Backlog New initiatives that help move applications through the patent prosecution system: • Enhanced Examination Timing Control – “Three Track” • Green Tech pilot program • Project Exchange • Accelerated-Examination Program 7

8. Applicant Collaboration Applicant Collaboration to produce better applications and facilitate issue resolution: • Ombudsman Program • Compact Prosecution Training • First Action Interview Program

9. Applicant Collaboration - Interviews • Interview Training improved communication skills of our examiners • interview time up nearly 40% • examiners logged 138,222 interview hours in FY 2010. • First Action Interview Pilot Program • First action allowance rate over twice that for all filings • Applicants embrace the open, collaborative culture change

10. Efficiency Through Process Improvement • Reengineering Classification system • Reengineering patent processes • Patents ‘end-to-end’ IT development initiative

11. Work Sharing Initiatives Current Programs: • PPH • PCT-PPH Pilots • SHARE-type initiatives: • USPTO-KIPO SHARE Pilot • USPTO & UK-IPO Action Plan for Re-use • PCT • IP5 Foundation Projects 11

12. Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) • Provides quicker patentability determination in multiple jurisdictions • Fourteen participating offices • First Office Actions within 3 months on average (from program acceptance), providing the pre-exam processing has been completed. • The program cumulative allowance rate is 95.1%, as compared to 45.6% in FY 2010 for all applications. 12

13. PPH - USPTO as 2nd Office

14. Total PPH cases Applications Date

15. PPH and PCT • PPH is completely complementary to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). • In January 2010, the USPTO, the JPO and the European Patent Office (EPO) began a program that allows participation within PPH of PCT national or regional phase applications when the International Search Authority, or ISA, determines that one or more claims are allowable. 15

16. SHARE SHARE (Strategic Handling of Applications for Rapid Examination) for applications filed in multiple offices: • Maximize re-use between offices to minimize duplication of examination • Agencies prioritize and balance workloads to maximize the re-use of foreign search and examination results • Minimizes duplication of examination work done in other IP offices 16

17. IP5 Foundation Projects • Partnership between: EPO, JPO, KIPO, SIPO and USPTO. • Eliminates unnecessary duplication of work among the offices, • Enhances patent examination efficiency and quality, and guarantees the stability of patents rights • Ten projects consist of IT-supported business processes and examination practice-related initiatives to provide infrastructure for work sharing. 17

18. Work Sharing Recent Developments • USPTO and EPO will work together towards the formation of a joint patent classification system • Korea, Spain and Russia added to the PPH-PCT programs • USPTO and UK Intellectual Property Office will develop a plan to optimize reuse of work on patent applications that are filed jointly at the USPTO and the UKIPO

19. Improving Quality • All Quality measures met our targets in FY 2010. • Shift resources from the “second-pair-of-eyes” effort to a front end quality program that assists examiners early in the examining phase. • Five new measures of patent quality were developed through the Patent Quality Task Force study, bringing the total quality metrics to seven. 19

20. Conclusions • Our strategic priorities guide us to the goal of reducing pendency and backlog, and contribute to the improvement of the global IP system. • The USPTO has launched new initiatives that bring new ways of thinking; an open-minded thinking to our Agency. • We have embraced transparency and openness because collaboration with our partners and our applicants brings us the insight we need to reach all of our goals. 20

21. Thank You 21