Performance Goal 1: Optimize Patent Quality and Timeliness
Patent Quality
Quality improvement continues to drive many of the Patent organization’s new initiatives. The Patent organization continues to improve the quality of its products and services using in-depth reviews of work in progress and enhanced end-process reviews to provide feedback to examiners on areas for improvement, targeted training, and safeguards to ensure competencies. The in-process compliance rate is the percentage of applications reviewed during prosecution and prior to allowance that were found to be free of errors. The allowance compliance rate is the percentage of reviewed applications allowed by examiners that did not have any errors.
Measure: Patent Allowance Compliance Rate
| 2005 |
96.0% |
95.4% |
| 2006 |
96.0% |
96.5% |
| 2007 |
96.0% |
96.5% |
| 2008 |
96.0% |
96.3% |
| 2009 |
96.5% |
96.9% |
| Target
Met. |
|
Measure: Patent In-Process Examination Compliance Rate
| 2005 |
84.0% |
86.2% |
| 2006 |
86.0% |
90.0% |
| 2007 |
90.0% |
92.2% |
| 2008 |
92.0% |
92.5% |
| 2009 |
93.0% |
93.2% |
| Target
Met. |
|
Patent Pendency
The two primary measures of Patent organization processing time are: (1) average first action pendency, which measures the average time in months from filing until an examiner’s initial determination is made of the patentability of an invention; and (2) average total pendency, which measures the average time in months from filing until the application is issued as a patent or abandoned by the applicant. The Patent organization met their pendency targets due to a significantly increased retention rate and to efficiencies gained within the examination corps, which are reflected in the percent of examination time increasing by over two percent from last year.
Measure: Patent Average First Action Pendency
| 2005 |
21.3 |
21.1 |
| 2006 |
22.0 |
22.6 |
| 2007 |
23.7 |
25.3 |
| 2008 |
26.9 |
25.6 |
| 2009 |
27.5 |
25.8 |
| Target
Met. |
|
Measure: Patent Average Total Pendency
| 2005 |
31.0 |
29.1 |
| 2006 |
31.3 |
31.1 |
| 2007 |
33.0 |
31.9 |
| 2008 |
34.7 |
32.2 |
| 2009 |
37.9 |
34.6 |
| Target
Met. |
|
PATENT E-FILING AND E-MANAGEMENT
The USPTO also created a fully electronic patent application management process whereby all patent examiners, technical support staff, and adjunct users can access an electronic image of all patent applications. Patent automation includes more than a dozen specialized applications used in patent examination, multiple search systems, databases, and commonly used office applications.
Measure: Patent Applications Filed Electronically
| 2005 |
4.0% |
2.2% |
| 2006 |
10.0% |
14.2% |
| 2007 |
40.0% |
49.3% |
| 2008 |
69.0% |
71.7% |
| 2009 |
80.0% |
82.5% 1 |
| Target
Met. |
|
Patent Efficiency
Measures the relative cost-effectiveness of the entire patent examination process over time, or the efficiency with which the organization applies its resources to production.
Measure: Patent Efficiency
| 2005 |
$4,122 |
$3,877 |
| 2006 |
$4,214 |
$3,798 |
| 2007 |
$4,253 |
$3,961 |
| 2008 |
$3,982 |
$3,773 |
| 2009 |
$3,562 |
$3,523 |
| Target
Met. |
|
|
