The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) proposing to set or adjust certain patent fees, as authorized by the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA). The proposed fees are projected to recover the aggregate estimated cost of the USPTO’s patent operations, Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) operations, and administrative services.

The last major patent fee setting using AIA authority became effective in March 2013. As part of the USPTO’s continued commitment to fiscal responsibility, financial prudence and operational efficiency, the Office comprehensively reviews fee levels on at least a biennial basis. The fee review process incorporates a thorough evaluation of the existing fee schedule as well as research and analysis on potential revisions to the schedule.

To learn more, read the press release.

The U.S. Commerce Department’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced the latest winners of the Patents for Humanity program. The Patents for Humanity program was launched by the USPTO in February 2012 as part of an Obama administration initiative promoting game-changing innovations to solve long-standing development challenges.

“We’ve seen the profound impact that good ideas—patented and marketed—can have on human beings, transcending national borders and transforming lives around the world,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office Michelle K. Lee. “By showcasing the meritorious work of patent owners to address 21st century humanitarian challenges, we hope this program will continue to inspire and guide countless more innovators.”

To learn more, read the press release.

The U.S. Commerce Department’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced the winners of the USPTO Cancer Moonshot Challenge. The challenge was launched by the USPTO in August as part of the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force, which aims to speed up patient-focused cancer treatments, increase patient access to clinical trials and therapies, and align public-private policies investments to improve the ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage.

The Cancer Moonshot Challenge enlisted the public’s help to leverage the USPTO’s intellectual property data, often an early indicator of meaningful research and development, and combine it with other economic and funding statistics. Using data sets released through the USPTO Developer Hub, participants used analytic tools, processes and complimentary data sets to build rich visualizations of intellectual property data, which can illuminate trend lines for new insights.

To learn more, read the press release.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is opening a new Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC) at the New Mexico State University (NMSU) Library located in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The New Mexico State University Library is the only PTRC in the state of New Mexico and will assist citizens throughout the state seeking patent and trademark protection for their intellectual property. The NMSU Library will have a staff of USPTO-trained librarians to provide customer assistance on the use of the agency’s patent and trademark databases.

To learn more, read the press release.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Israel Ministry of Justice unit, the Israel Patent Office (ILPO) announced ILPO’s participation in the Cooperative Classification Patent (CPC) system. 

The ILPO will classify its newly filed Israel national stage patent documents into the CPC thereby expanding CPC’s coverage of patent documents throughout the world and enabling Israel documents to be searched alongside other countries. 

“Today’s announcement illustrates the usefulness of the Cooperative Patent Classification system and demonstrates the excellent bilateral relationship and spirit of cooperation between the USPTO and ILPO,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee. “The CPC helps innovators and businesses who are filing both domestically and abroad and USPTO looks forward to working with ILPO as it begins the process of classifying documents into the Cooperative Patent Classification system.”

To learn more, read the press release.

We’ll have a chance later in the program to talk in greater detail about some of the far-reaching changes brought about by the AIA, but let me briefly highlight a few—which are depicted in the visuals around the room today. I’ll start with the one near and dear to my heart, and that’s our regional offices. AIA called for creation of three such offices. Instead we created four—in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, and the Silicon Valley. In fact, it was the opportunity to lead the Silicon Valley office that brought me to the USPTO and public service. So, you could say, I wouldn’t even be here without the AIA. Nor would there be the full complement of talented examiners and judges on hand in each location now, tirelessly delivering on the AIA’s promise to provide key USPTO resources and outreach in the heart of our nation’s most innovative regions. Those offices are saving inventors and entrepreneurs a lot of money by allowing them to do business with our agency closer to where they live and work, rather than here in the nation’s capital. As a former patent attorney who lived and worked on the West Coast, I can tell you that makes a real difference for a lot of people. I always say, there is nothing but upside to these regional offices—for our stakeholders and for the Agency.

Read the remarks by Director Michelle K. Lee.

I am proud to provide the Committee with an overview of the USPTO’s recent activities and accomplishments. Since I last testified, we have not only made progress within our core mission areas, but have also made operational advancements as well and focused significant effort on enhancing patent examination quality. We have made progress reducing overall patent pendency, reducing our inventory of unexamined applications and implementing the post-grant review proceedings established by the 2011 America Invents Act (AIA) – all of which I will discuss in greater detail.

These areas of accomplishment would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of the USPTO’s highly educated and talented workforce. The USPTO continues to build, retain and effectively manage the workforce it needs to serve its critical stakeholder community.

Read the statement by Director Michelle K. Lee.

We’ve come a long way in five years. The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), signed in 2011 by President Obama, modernized the U.S. patent system and, as a result, helped strengthen America’s competitiveness in the global economy. Together with our stakeholders, the USPTO sought to implement the act consistent with the intent of Congress to increase certainty in our nation’s intellectual property (IP) landscape and enable the brightest ideas and most ambitious endeavors in the world to come to light.

I was there in 2011 and the years leading up to the President signing the AIA and have watched the agency embrace and implement the numerous provisions in the act. On Wednesday, September 21, members of Congress and key congressional staff, USPTO leadership, and stakeholders from industry and the inventor community came together again to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the AIA on Capitol Hill.

Read the guest blog by Dana Robert Colarulli, Director of the Office of Governmental Affairs. 

One important component of the USPTO’s commitment to achieve greater accuracy, clarity, and consistency in examination and prosecution is the Clarity and Correctness Data Capture (CCDC) program. As part of our Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative, the goal of the CCDC is an improved data capture system to enable all reviewers of finished work products to consistently document and access quality review data in one place. By entering the results of these reviews into a single database, the USPTO will ultimately capture three to five times more data as a single data set than we have previously captured. With this larger data set, we will be able to identify trends at a more granular level, and in doing so, we will be poised to provide training and other educational opportunities to examiners, in order to achieve greater transparency in examination and prosecution. We are also updating our quality metrics in view of this new data, which will be the subject of a future blog post.

Read the guest blog by Valencia Martin Wallace, Deputy Commissioner for Patent Quality. 

Five years ago, President Obama signed the America Invents Act (AIA) into law, bringing sweeping changes to the U.S. patent system. In addition to those major changes, other aspects of the AIA focused on leveling the playing field for inventors and entrepreneurs. Today, we want to talk about one of those aspects, Section 32.

Section 32 provides that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) “work with and support intellectual property law associations across the country in the establishment of pro bono programs designed to assist financially under-resourced independent inventors and small businesses.” In doing so, Congress acknowledged “the importance of individuals and small businesses to the patent system and our national culture of innovation.”

Read the guest blog by Will Covey, Deputy General Counsel and John Kirkpatrick, Patent Pro Bono Coordinator.

The Deputy Commissioner for Patent Quality held the tenth Patent Quality Chat in the 2016 webinar series on Tuesday, September 13 on Future Information Disclosure Practice in a Global Dossier Environment. Speakers included Deputy Commissioner for International Patent Cooperation Mark Powell and Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy Robert Bahr. As part of USPTO’s continuing efforts to improve patent examination quality and efficiency, the conversation explored whether we should leverage electronic resources (e.g., Global Dossier and USPTO internal databases) to automatically import relevant information into pending U.S. applications from sources, such as domestic parent and counterpart foreign applications. We discussed the benefits that could be achieved from the perspective of both examiners and applicants. Enhancements to information disclosure practice are an important step towards improving Excellence in Customer Service as a part of the Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative (EPQI).

Patent Quality Chat is a monthly, lunchtime webinar series designed to provide information on patent quality topics and gather your input. The next Patent Quality Chat will be held on October 15 and will focus on Assistance in Patenting: Patents Ombudsman and Pro Se Assistance Programs.

To learn more, watch the archived video or view the presentation slides.

“Unlocking Patent Data to Spur Cancer Breakthroughs”
by Michelle K. Lee, Medium 

“A Dynamic Patent System and the Power of American Innovation”
by Michelle K. Lee, The Huffington Post

“Unleashing Patent Data to the Public”
by Thomas A. Beach, Commerce Blog

“Why are most inventors men?”
by Laura Santhanam, PBS NewsHour

“Who Cares About Trademarks?”
by The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Intellectual Property Center