The Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) released the 2017-2019 U.S. Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement, which offers a blueprint for coordinating resources and priorities to sustain a robust IP enforcement environment. The USPTO partnered with the IPEC and agencies throughout the federal government in crafting a plan that both highlights the cultural and economic importance of intellectual property incentives, and also ensures certainty in the marketplace through enforcement mechanisms to encourage creative growth and minimize misappropriation of innovation. The USPTO is proud to play a role in promoting clear, consistent, high quality and enforceable IP rights to enable market growth. The office also provides critical international leadership in protecting IP overseas and navigating international IP laws. From copyrights and trade secrets protection, to the examination and registration of patents and trademarks, the USPTO will continue to foster a balanced IP playing field for U.S. businesses to compete in foreign markets and export abroad.

To learn more, read the press release.

My team and I launched the Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative at the beginning of 2015. With our backlog and pendency numbers on their way to being reduced by almost one third since their all-time highs at the start of the administration, with the greater financial security enjoyed by the agency as a result of the fee setting authority granted by the AIA, and in recognition of the need for patent owners to have greater certainty in their patent rights, and for the courts and innovators to have greater clarity of a patent’s boundaries to make informed decisions, the timing was (and is) right for the agency to focus in a concerted and comprehensive manner on improving the quality of patents issued.

Read the remarks by Director Michelle K. Lee.

I am proud of the work done by our nearly 13,000 employees — including more than 8,300 patent examiners — to help our nation’s innovators secure intellectual property rights. The overwhelming majority of these employees are hard-working, highly educated, and highly skilled professionals who perform their jobs with the utmost integrity and dedication.

We take seriously any allegation of abuse in our workplace. Any abuse of time and attendance by an employee is unfair to our stakeholders who rely on our Agency and to other employees who abide by the rules. It is unacceptable and will not be tolerated within the USPTO.

Read the statement by Deputy Director Russ Slifer.

Representatives from the USPTO and the intellectual property offices of the European Union, Japan, Korea, and China — which together account for more than 90 percent of the world’s design patent filings — convened in Beijing, China, November 1–2, 2016, for the second annual meeting of the Industrial Design Forum, or ID5.

The ID5 was formed in December 2015, with its inaugural meeting held at USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. Its goal is to improve consistency in registration policies for industrial designs and to facilitate progress on a range of matters that stakeholders around the world would like to see addressed. These include grace periods, partial designs, graphical user interfaces and icon designs, implementation of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Digital Access Service, and the standardization of design representations.

Read the blog by Chief Policy Officer and Director for International Affairs Shira Perlmutter.

The USPTO has worked hard to fight solicitations from companies fraudulently promising to protect trademarks, and we have taken a number of steps to help raise awareness of these schemes in an attempt to limit the number of victims defrauded. Our agency works closely with federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and the United States Postal Inspection Service to combat the problem.

The Department of Justice announced last week that two California men pled guilty in a mass-mailing scam that targeted owners of U.S. trademark applications. The men, Artashes Darbinyan and Orbel Hakobyan, admitted to stealing approximately $1.66 million from registrants and applicants of U.S. trademarks through companies called Trademark Compliance Center (TCC) and Trademark Compliance Office (TCO). The USPTO is proud to have cooperated with law enforcement agencies in the California case.

Read the blog by Commissioner for Trademarks Mary Boney Denison.

USPTO regional offices support the agency’s mission of fostering innovation by serving their regions’ intellectual property (IP) communities, assisting local businesses, and educating the public about the importance of IP. Regional office staff, in addition to USPTO trademark staff from headquarters, provide the public with full access to trademark information and resources in their local communities. This year, I visited all four regional offices: Denver and Silicon Valley in the fall, and Dallas and Detroit earlier in the year. During these visits, I had the chance to meet with USPTO employees, hear from local businesses, inventors, and IP practitioners about their concerns, and hold events on the importance of trademarks.

In September, I visited the Rocky Mountain Regional Office in Denver, where I got to see firsthand the vibrant IP community in the region, as well as the tireless work done by Director Molly Kocialski and the Denver office staff. I was excited to host the first interactive webcast trademark session in the Rocky Mountain region with USPTO trademark experts.

Read the blog by Commissioner for Trademarks Mary Boney Denison.

It is critically important that the USPTO issue patents that are of the highest quality possible, and to accomplish this, we are taking measures to achieve greater accuracy, clarity, and consistency in examination and prosecution. One important component of this effort is providing metrics that are more clear and understandable to all our stakeholders. Based on public feedback, we established the Quality Metrics program, part of the USPTO’s ongoing Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative, designed to enhance the assessment of our work products and to more clearly communicate our quality measurements.

Read the blog by Deputy Director Russ Slifer.

This year’s winners of the Patents for Humanity Award found new and innovative ways to administer and provide health care solutions in some of the most disadvantaged and underserved regions of the world. On November 16, four entities – a university, a federal agency, a business and a nonprofit– were recognized at the National Press Club for their work in tackling the global burden of disease and changing the world for the better.

Winners included Case Western Reserve University for a low-cost malaria detection device, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an improved meningitis vaccine, GestVision, Inc. for a quick diagnostic test for preeclampsia, and Global Good Fund at Intellectual Ventures for a cooler which can preserve vaccines for over a month with no outside power source. Read more about each of the award recipients.

Read the blog by The Department of Commerce.

Over the past six years, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued a series of decisions—Bilski, Mayo, Myriad, and Alice—that have significantly impacted patent eligibility law and continue to generate substantial public debate. The USPTO sought input from the public on patent subject-matter eligibility through two roundtables held November 14 in Alexandria, Virginia, and December 5 in Stanford, California.

The second roundtable focused on receiving feedback regarding larger questions concerning the legal contours of eligible subject matter in the U.S. patent system. Additional details about the roundtables are in a Federal Register Notice published Oct. 17, 2016.

To learn more, watch the archived Livestream of the December 5 roundtable. 

The Deputy Commissioner for Patent Quality held the final Patent Quality Chat in the 2016 webinar series on Tuesday, December 13, a special engagement on advancing patent quality across the IP community. Director Michelle K. Lee served as the keynote speaker providing insights into the future of patent quality. Discussion topics included the results of many Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative programs, patent quality and its impact in the U.S. courts, professional responsibility and practice before the USPTO, quality efforts at the European Patent Office, and more.

Patent Quality Chat is a monthly, lunchtime webinar series designed to provide information on patent quality topics and gather the public’s input.

To learn more about the December 13 Patent Quality Conference, view the presentation slides or the booklet of supporting materials.

“An Exit Interview with the Nation’s Patent Chief”
Brent Kendall, Wall Street Journal

“President Obama's IP Advisor Talks Reform Efforts and a New Administration”
Ashley Cullins, Hollywood Reporter

“Eighth Annual Patent Law and Policy Conference Features Judges, Leading Experts”
Georgetown Law

“USPTO Director Lee Discusses Importance Of Patent Quality”
Intellectual Property Watch

“USPTO Closes Year with Second Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Roundtable and Updated Guidance”
National Law Review

“Beware of trademark scammers, says USPTO”
IPPro The Internet

“USPTO joins in Star Wars hype”
David Thornton, Federal News Radio