Director's Forum: David Kappos' Public Blog

Reengineering the MPEP: Part 3

If you’ve been following along with my blog for a while, you already know we’ve been looking at ways to reengineer the MPEP and TMEP.  In Part 2 of this series we reported that one important part of the new MPEP/TMEP philosophy would be continuous outreach and collaboration with the IP community to ensure the documents are accurate and current and maximally effective.  There was broad consensus that there should be a tool that allows for outside contributions to the content of these manuals while ensuring that the USPTO is the keeper of the official versions of the documents.

I’m thrilled to announce to our readers that we have now put out what we believe is a radically new way for us to work in collaboration with colleagues and stakeholders in getting this important job done. The vehicle we chose to bring that philosophy to action is the Internet, more specifically an online discussion tool. Now for the first time in history, the IP world can work with the USPTO, together and collaboratively make the MPEP and TMEP into state-of-the-art practice documents.

Now what we're looking for is the IP community to get involved.  Go to the MPEP or the TMEP discussion websites.  Check them out.  Join the discussion.  Contribute to improve the MPEP and TMEP.

We'll be featuring a few chapters from each document on a rolling basis, so the opportunities to have a positive impact will be indefinite in duration.

Posted at 05:50PM Jan 14, 2011 in USPTO  |