Trademark Performance

The Trademark organization demonstrated unprecedented performance results by exceeding all of its quality, timeliness, e-government, production, and efficiency targets for the fiscal year. The level of accomplishment for FY 2006 further improved upon the success achieved in FY 2005 when all but one performance measure was met. Significant progress was demonstrated by capitalizing on process improvements that are the result of many years of investment in people and IT that has changed how work is performed and information is communicated. Performance results further reflect the ability of Trademark’s to deliver results that are consistent with the level of funding necessary to support operations with increases in filings and demand for services.

The USPTO continues to demonstrate progress towards achieving its e-government objectives which rely on electronic communications and financial incentives to offer market-based services and improve the availability and participation in the U.S. trademark system by providing access to information to more effectively serve an increasingly larger, global client-base. Electronic access increases the opportunity for filing for federal registration, which provides protection to business owners and consumers by providing notice of marks in use. Electronic filing and information systems serve customers in two very important ways: by improving the time and accessibility of information and by improving the quality of the initial application and therefore the quality of the data that is captured and shared in the publication and registration of trademarks.

The USPTO continues to maximize electronic tools to make the trademark registration process fully transparent to the public. Anyone with Internet access anywhere in the world can review documents in the official trademark application file, including all decisions made by trademark examining attorneys and their reasons for making them through the Trademark Document Retrieval system. The complete file contents of the pending inventory of applications are available electronically as well as 43 percent of registered trademarks in use.

The USPTO has discontinued the practice of creating and maintaining paper file copies of trademark applications and now relies exclusively on trademark data submitted or captured electronically to support trademark examination, publication of documents, and granting of registrations. An assessment of the workflow and mapping of the process was initiated to assess opportunities for process and cycle time improvement by examining changes that have been made in the process with the elimination of paper processing. A number of improvements has been made and will continue to be made in how internal operations are conducted that will further improve the efficiency of the process, provide better internal controls for tracking the status of correspondence, and identify the progress of work performed and completed. These changes in practice are recognition of the on-going progress that has been made in creating and using electronic records to process and examine applications filed for the registration of a trademark. A complete electronic records database covering all trademark pending applications, including on-going correspondence has been created by capturing the text and image of all new applications as they are filed. The database supports paperless examination as the source of application records used within the Office as well as those accessible to the public.

Electronic systems continued to be upgraded to increase the number and type of transactions that can be completed. Significant process changes and enhancements have been incorporated that provide the capability to manage all examiner actions and dockets in a completely electronic environment as well as manage the assignment of new applications. Changes were made in the past year to remove the pending paper file docket based on process changes that have eliminated the need for manual processing of files for transactions that are required to support the core examination function. Additional changes, which were the result of an internal assessment of the process, were made to streamline post publication operations, reducing cycle time. Together, these changes have improved workflow efficiency that has led to significant gains in reducing pendency and drastically reducing the number of paper files that are identified as lost or requests to reinstate an application due to office error.

Electronic communications make it possible to conduct a preliminary search prior to filing an application, determine the status of pending and registered trademarks, respond to office actions, access general information, examination manuals, treaties, laws and regulations, obtain weekly information on marks published, registered and renewed, file initial applications, and maintain a registered mark through the USPTO website. The USPTO publishes a weekly on-line Trademark Official Gazette that contains information covering several thousand marks and other office actions. The weekly publication is fully electronic; text and images that contain the layout are extracted from electronic records and sent to the Government Printing Office for printing registration certificates. The weekly Trademark Official Gazette, Registration Certificates, and Updated Registration Certificates for the five most recent weekly issues are available electronically from the USPTO website. The entire publication, including registration certificates, is available as a PDF file that can be downloaded via the Internet for free, providing expanded as well as more timely access to trademark information.

The USPTO continues to support improvements in electronic filing that result in greater use of electronic filing and communications. In the eight years since trademark electronic filing first became available, more than 959,118 applications, including more than 1,235,933 classes, have been filed for the registration of a trademark. Today, 93.8 percent of all new trademark applications are filed using the award-winning Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS), an increase of six percent over FY 2005 results.

Over the past year, the Trademark organization has continued to enhance the features available to the public and worked to ensure the overall transformation of the Trademark organization as an effective e-government operation. Twenty-six electronic TEAS forms are available with new features added in the past year that increase the functionality of the forms and attachments. Applicants may now submit PDF attachments with electronically filed responses to office actions, a feature that was requested by the user community. Applicants may also access the Identification Manual when completing the basic application form. The availability and the convenience of accessing trademark related information via the Internet has improved our ability to provide timely, useful information. It has stimulated demand for more services and enabled more complete filings and responses while improving the efficiency of the examination process.

Madrid Protocol

The process of registering trademarks in one or more of the 60 member countries has been greatly improved since the United States became a member of the Madrid Protocol on November 2, 2003. U.S. business owners are now able to file a single application with the USPTO in English, pay in U.S. dollars, and potentially have their mark protected in any or all of the countries that are members of the Protocol. Non-U.S. trademark owners of member countries may elect to seek an extension of protection of their international registration in the U.S. by filing through the International Bureau of WIPO. The USPTO received 3,131 international applications and 12,718 requests for extension of protection or subsequent designation containing 27,621 classes from the International Bureau under the Protocol in FY 2006.

Trilateral Project

Representatives from the USPTO, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), the European Trademark Office, and the JPO, continue their work on the harmonization of identifications and classification project. The objective of the Trilateral Identification and Classification Manual Project is to make the trademark application and examination process easier by agreeing on the acceptability of certain identifications of goods and services for use in all three offices. The Trademark Identification Manual is updated to incorporate identifications for goods and services that have been accepted as a result of efforts through this project.

The USPTO implemented a secure website to enable representatives from USPTO, OHIM, and JPO, to add to, delete from, or modify the identifications of goods and services in preparation for the 9th edition of the Nice Agreement – an international agreement on classification of goods and services.

Quality

The Trademark organization continues to see improvements in examination quality as reflected by the decrease in the first and final office action deficiency rate. The criteria for assessing quality expands on the issues that are considered for determining the quality of “in-process” first and final office actions as “excellent” and “deficient” to better reflect more meaningful and rigorous standards of quality. The information evaluated from the quality review results has been used to identify and better focus training to enhance overall quality and to improve the consistency of examination. Nine new training modules and seven exam guides were prepared to address some of the reoccurring problems that were determined based on analyses of the reviews. Examiners are required to take a series of self-paced tutorials, as part of the USPTO’s commitment to improve the quality of examination and ensure that all examiners possess the knowledge and skills necessary to perform their jobs.

Customer Call Center

The USPTO operates a modern call center system with caller relationship management technology to enhance its effectiveness in handling and responding to caller inquiries. The system is a state-of-the-art web-based information system that enables agents to manage caller data, track problems, fulfill information requests, answer e-mails, and provide consistent information. Data is used to identify trends, track problem resolution, conduct root cause analysis, and take action to prevent and eliminate the reoccurrence of problems.

Telecommuting

The USPTO continues to gain recognition as a leader in the federal government for its successful telecommuting program. The Trademark telecommuting program was designed so that examiners could perform the same work and access the same IT systems from home that they do in the Office. Examiners work from home for a majority of the workweek using an automated reservation system to assign office space on an as-needed basis. The program met its objective to greatly reduce office space requirements and costs. The Trademark program was expanded to include 220 examiners in the past year; 85 percent of the eligible examiners now take advantage of the program. The program continues to be expanded to include other employees throughout the Trademark organization. All eligible employees, including examiners, were working from home at least one day per week.

The USPTO’s Trademark work-at-home program received the Telework Program with Maximum Impact on Government Award in 2006 for its extremely successful model telecommuting program by the Telework Exchange. The program was recognized as an innovative Telework prototype for how to incorporate measurable performance goals in evaluating the performance of its teleworkers. The Trademark hoteling program is considered a “best practice” due to its success in addressing budgetary, space, retention, recruitment, and job satisfaction issues that face all government agencies and contribute to popularity of the program.

Filings

New application filings for trademark registration increased by nine percent in the past year. The USPTO received 275,790 trademark applications, including 354,775 classes for registration in FY 2006.

Office Disposals

Total office disposals were 256,002 including 315,783 classes, 5.9 percent above plan and 25 percent above FY 2005. Registrations were 16.6 percent above plan and more than 30 percent above FY 2005 with 147,118 marks registered, including 188,899 classes.

Pending Inventory

Total trademark applications pending in the USPTO decreased by nearly five percent in FY 2006 to 474,241 with 634,087 classes. Twenty-six percent of the pending file inventory is in a post Notice of Allowance status awaiting the filing of a statement of use. The inventory of unexamined applications (prior to first office action) at the end of the year was 99,890, containing 123,986 classes; the number of unexamined files decreased 29 percent from the prior fiscal year with a decrease of 27.6 percent in the number of classes consistent with the increase in office disposals and reduction in pendency.

Trademark Quality

PERFORMANCE GOAL: Improve the quality of trademark products and services and optimize trademark processing time

The Trademark organization will continue to work towards the enhancement of quality assurance programs to include more-in-depth reviews of work in progress. This includes the implementation of in-process reviews that consider all elements of decision-making in evaluating examiner first and final office actions. The Trademark organization continues to work towards full automation of the management of its workflow to improve efficiency and reduce processing times. The following performance measures have been established to reflect the USPTO’s success and progress in meeting these performance goals.

The Trademark organization implemented two new measures for assessing examination quality in 2004. These include an evaluation for all issues that could be considered deficient in making a first and final action substantive refusal. Evaluations are conducted on a random sample of applications to review the quality of decision making of the examiner’s first office action and final action refusal. 2,415 files were reviewed with 4.3 percent of the files having at least one deficient substantive first action refusal. 2,508 files were reviewed with at least one issue determined for a final action deficiency rate of 3.6 percent.

MEASURE: Trademark Final Action Deficiency Rate

MEASURE: Trademark First Action Deficiency Rate

TRADEMARK PENDENCY

MEASURE: Trademark Average First Action Pendency (months)

This measure reflects the timeliness of the first office action as measured from the date of application filing to the first office action. The Trademark organization intends to reduce first action pendency to three months by FY 2008.

MEASURE: Trademark Average Total Pendency (months)

This measure reflects the timeliness related to the disposal of a trademark application as measured from the date of filing to registration, abandonment or issuance of a notice of allowance, including applications that are suspended awaiting further action or involved in inter partes proceedings. Disposal pendency, including suspended and inter partes cases, was 18.0 months. Excluding applications that were suspended or delayed for inter partes proceedings; disposal pendency was 15.5 months.

MEASURE: Trademark Efficiency

This measure is a relative indicator of the efficiency of the trademark process as measured by the total cost of programs that support the examination and registration of trademarks compared to its core outputs or office disposals.

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