Our Vision for 2014-2018
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
I’m pleased to announce today the publication of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s 2014-2018 Strategic Plan. We appreciate the helpful feedback we received on the draft we released last year. The final product is stronger as a result.
My senior management team and I put a lot of care and thought into this plan, because we take seriously our role as a driver of creativity and economic growth in the 21st century innovation economy. For the last five years, we have worked diligently to achieve the goals of our 2010-2015 Strategic Plan, such as significantly reducing our unexamined patent application backlog and pendency; modernizing our information technology systems; implementing the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act; and securing sustainable funding. Our progress is significant and quantifiable.
Our new strategic plan raises the bar. We will continue to enhance our human resources, retaining and hiring more talented examiners while continuing to ensure that the USPTO remains one of the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government. That, in turn, will allow us to further improve the quality and transparency of our patent and trademark operations while continuing to reduce patent pendency.
Increased quality and transparency of our operations and output is necessarily coupled with continued and expanded engagement with our stakeholders and the public. We are seeing that now in our efforts to build a better patent system through our implementation of executive actions offering positive reforms. That engagement has and will come in many forms, from multiple public events to outreach through our satellite offices in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, and Silicon Valley.
We of course remain focused on ensuring a sustainable funding model to best serve our stakeholders. That means pursuing spending authority for all fee collections; establishing permanent fee-setting authority; and using private-sector business tools. This effort also will involve close engagement with all of our stakeholders.
Please take a moment to peruse the 2014-2018 Strategic Plan. We look forward to working with you to help meet—nay, surpass—the outlined goals.
Posted at 10:58AM Mar 14, 2014 in USPTO |