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Friday Oct 22, 2010

USPTO 2010-2015 Strategic Plan Released

Special Guest Blog by USPTO Deputy Director Sharon Barner

Director Kappos and I are pleased to announce the release of the final version of the USPTO 2010-2015 Strategic Plan at www.uspto.gov/strategicplan2010.

 

The plan is designed to strengthen the capacity of the USPTO to achieve its goals, improve the quality of patents and trademarks issued, and shorten the time it takes to get a patent.  The plan, as fully implemented, will enhance and accelerate the innovation and job growth needed to transform the U.S. economy, foster competitiveness, and drive the creation and growth of U.S. businesses.

 

A key feature of the USPTO 2010-2015 Strategic Plan is the Balanced Scorecard—a detailed chart showing how each of our many initiatives supports a particular goal, along with associated performance metrics linked to action plans that will provide meaningful information on the status and performance of each initiative.  This scorecard will be used as a management tool: progress under the plan will be reported to Director Kappos and senior management on a regular basis.

 

In developing this plan, we solicited input from interested parties, including the public, stakeholders, and employees.  Three employee sessions were held on July 20-22 to present the draft and to solicit employee feedback.  We presented the draft to our Patent Public Advisory Committee and the Trademark Public Advisory Committee.  We also posted the draft on our Web site, published a Federal Register notice announcing its availability for review and comment, and created a dedicated email address for the purpose of obtaining comments.  Finally, we shared a draft of the plan with the Department of Commerce, the Office of Management and Budget, and Congress. 

 

We took your feedback seriously.  Let me list a few examples of how the plan was improved based on comments from our employees and the public.  Based on your feedback, we have:

  • Aligned every goal, objective, and initiative in the Balanced Scorecard so that they correspond exactly with the DOC themes and USPTO goals and objectives described in greater detail the preceding text of the plan;
  • Added an initiative to consolidate the oversight and coordination of the USPTO’s many educational and outreach initiatives, including those focused on elementary, middle school, high school, and university students;
  • Added greater emphasis on the quality and timeliness of international search reports and written opinions, thereby maximizing the potential for re-use of work in the Patent Cooperation Treaty national phase;
  • Emphasized that “work sharing” implies the leveraging, or reutilization of work to the maximum extent reasonable, rather than mutual recognition.

 

These are just some examples of how comments such as yours have shaped our plan.  To the extent that comments were focused on the implementation details of a particular initiative, they will be considered during the design and implementation phase of that initiative.  You will have additional opportunities to submit comments when these initiatives are announced in the Federal Register, at public roundtables, and here on this blog.

 

Thank you again for your comments and for your continuing interest in improving the USPTO.

Comments:

very nice your blog.

Posted by baskar on October 23, 2010 at 04:53 AM EDT #

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