GOAL 2:  OptimizeTrademark Quality and Timeliness

Introduction

Trademarks have served an important purpose throughout recorded history, as owners of goods and services put their names on their products. In the 21^st century, trademarks represent valuable business properties, serving as the symbol of a company's good will and the products and services it offers. By registering trademarks, we have a significant role in protecting consumers from confusion as well as providing important benefits to American businesses.

A mark registered with the USPTO serves as prima facie evidence of ownership and the right to use the mark. The registration can be deposited with U.S. Customs and Border Protection in order to stop the importation of infringing goods and provide access to the federal court system. Most importantly, the registration serves as notice to the world of the owner's claim of right in the trademark.

Today, a business developing a new mark to identify its goods or services can search and discover via the USPTO web site more than two million marks in which others claim rights, and then subsequently file an application for registration. Our plan is to redesign our operations to use e-government as the primary means of doing business with applicants and registrants, and as the sole means for processing work inside the trademark examining operation. In addition to our electronic filing and information systems, completion of an electronic file management system will:  reduce cycle times; enhance the functionality and number of electronic filing options; provide access to pending applications and registered marks; and facilitate processing requests from U.S. applicants seeking protection of their mark in foreign countries, as well as requests for protection of marks from foreign applicants in the United States.

Challenges/Opportunities

• We must clearly identify what constitutes quality and demonstrate, through statistically valid metrics, that the quality of our work is the highest possible commensurate with the given level of resources.
• Operating in today's domestic and international environment requires us to have full electronic processing that is safe, secure and accessible to employees, registrants and stakeholders. Our robust Trademark electronic workplace systems must be adaptable to continuous improvement.
• We must be able to provide certainty for first action pendency regardless of fluctuations in filing and funding by changing our practices for staffing and distributing work. This requires a collaborative management effort to improve application-filing projections, and provide more certainty to a budget process that begins 18 months prior to the start of the fiscal year.
• Securing long-term funding stability and the flexibility to adjust fees in order to create a predictable and orderly operating environment for providing certainty for trademark applicants is critical to the entire organization, and particularly to Trademarks. USPTO management must work with the Administration in finding solutions to this challenge.
• The integration of Trademark and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) systems must be an area of focus to provide a seamless interface for applicants and reliability of operations.
• We are experiencing increased pendency for requests for reconsideration that are filed contemporaneously with the notices of appeal and must find ways to address this issue.
• Currently, uncontrolled discovery along with an excessive number of discovery and trial motions are increasing the pendency of TTAB opposition proceedings and, ultimately, registration or disposal pendency.

Our Strategic Response

We will develop alternatives for predicting workloads, making process improvements, hiring and retaining a qualified workforce and assigning work; fully leverage and expand the potentials of the electronic work environment; and improve TTAB case processing.

Objective #1:  Achieve and maintain a three-month first action pendency, and reduce disposal pendency excluding suspended and inter partes cases.

Initiatives

• Achieve and maintain first action pendency at three months by exploring ways to change how work is performed and assigned
  
• Improve disposal pendency by:
• Consolidating or eliminating redundant levels of review of applications approved for publication
• Changing the time frame for the Official Gazette legal review and Trademark Quality Review's image review to optimize efficiency
• Exploring revamping the timeline for the Official Gazette opposition and publication process
• Completing process maps of the examination process and supporting the maps electronically
  
• Implement state-of-the art remote training and meeting capabilities to further facilitate telework
  
• Expand telework opportunities to all eligible employees
  
• Streamline TTAB case resolution by promulgating rules requiring parties in opposition and cancellation proceedings to participate in discovery conferences, make initial disclosure of information and disclose potential witnesses, and promoting and expanding the use of "accelerated case resolution" whereby cases are decided based on summary judgment-type submissions stipulated by the parties

Objective #2:  Improve quality of examination by ensuring consistency and quality of searching and examination and provide internal on-line tools.

Initiative

• Continue quality improvements that began with the adoption of a new quality standard and quality review process in fiscal year 2003 by:
  • Increasing the use of quality review findings by analyzing and incorporating the results in training, examination guidelines and policies, and manuals
  • Creating comprehensive new employee training programs and procedures manuals for all examination-related positions
  • Revising the final office action metrics by measuring and reporting on the quality of all Trademark final work rather than just final refusals
  • Explore creating web-based search tools, data mining, and automated preliminary searches so that examining attorneys can search more effectively

Objective #3:  Provide electronic file management and workflow.

Initiative

Implement the Trademark Information System (TIS) as a truly electronic workflow environment to manage correspondence from pre-examination through post-examination, to provide more automated communications with internal and external customers, to permit real-time monitoring of applications and to implement tighter integration between all supporting automation information systems

Objective #4:  Develop interactive on-line electronic filing capabilities and upgrade e-tools.

Initiative

• Expand/enhance Trademark electronic filing

Performance Measures

• Applications filed electronically
  
• Applications managed electronically
  
• First action compliance rate
  
• Final action compliance rate
  
• Average first action pendency
  
• Average total pendency
  
• Efficiency
  
• Productivity

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