OTHER ACCOMPANYING INFORMATION

Other Accompanying Information: Workload and Performance – From 2006 to 2008 to 2012

Consistent with the President's Management Agenda, the USPTO is committed to improving transparency in its operations so as to enhance quality and public confidence. This means reporting more, better and more meaningful information about workloads and performance. It also means the information will present a real basis for measuring improvements. The following workload/performance indicators provide the quantitative foundation that forms the planning assumptions and metrics by which accomplishment of the strategic plan can be evaluated.

* New/Revised Measures

a/ Confidence level +/- 0.5%

b/ Confidence level +/- 1.0%

Other Accompanying Information:  The Strategic Planning Process

The USPTO launched a bottom-up, collaborative process to formulate this new Plan, which consisted of:

Input From Interested Parties

• Conducted employee focus sessions, including a special session with bargaining unit leaders and representatives, to identify the USPTO's internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats.
  
• Reviewed recently issued reports and evaluations to capture findings and suggestions about USPTO operations.
  
• Created an opportunity for all employees to provide input and ideas on addressing USPTO challenges, either anonymously or with attribution.
  
• Established a special e-mail address for external interested parties to tell us what is important to them.
  
• Reviewed all of the input to ensure that strategic issues were addressed during the planning and review process.
  

Strategy Development

Executives validated and updated the USPTO mission statement, vision statement and goals that drove the strategic planning process.

• The Director personally met with the heads of the business areas to discuss a vision of what the USPTO might be like in 2016.
  
• Business heads identified high-level strategies/means, objectives and performance measures for accomplishing the goals.
  
• Supporting plans were developed to complement the strategic plan, such as the Strategic Human Capital Plan.
  

Budget and Performance Integration

• The strategic plan and fiscal year 2008 budget are in alignment.
  
• Performance Accountability cascades from the strategic plan to the yearly performance agreements between the Secretary and the Commissioners for Patents and Trademarks, to senior executives, office directors, managers and supervisors.
  

Evaluations

USPTO Executives reviewed recently issued reports and evaluations and took these findings and suggestions into consideration as they formulated the strategic goals, objectives and initiatives that comprise this plan.

• The FISCAL YEAR 2003 Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) assessed the Patent organization, which received a rating of "adequate" and the Trademark organization, which received a rating of "moderately effective."
  
• The Government Accountability Office (GAO) report entitled Intellectual Property:  USPTO Has Made Progress in Hiring Examiners, but Challenges to Retention Remain.
  
• The GAO report entitled Intellectual Property:  Key Processes for Managing Patent Automation.
  
• A study conducted by the National Academy of Public Administration entitled U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:  Transforming to Meet the Challenges of the 21^st Century.
  
• The fiscal year 2004 management reports to the Congress by the Patent Public Advisory Committee and the Trademark Public Advisory Committee.
  

Future Evaluations

To ensure that the USPTO proposes appropriate changes to patent and trademark regulations and laws, makes changes to internal processes that provide benefits and increased efficiency, and makes sound investment decisions, many of the initiatives proposed in this plan will be subjected to evaluations before full implementation. Pilot projects will be carried out using rigorous criteria of measurable objectives, critical success factors, baseline data, and conditions for full implementation.

Consultation Process

• A draft strategic plan was sent to the Trademark Public Advisory Committee and the Patent Public Advisory Committee on August 22 and 23, 2006 respectively.
  
• The USPTO published a Federal Register notice on August 24, 2006, announcing the availability of the draft strategic plan on its web site.
  
• Stakeholders and employees were encouraged to provide comments to special e-mail boxes established earlier in the year.
  
• A public forum was held on September 29, 2006, to receive oral comments.
  
• Individual letters encouraging review of the draft plan and comments were sent to various key stakeholder groups.
  
• Representatives of the EPO and the JPO were briefed on the draft strategic plan in mid-September.
  
• The proposed strategic plan was shared with the Congress, and no substantive changes were suggested.
  

Communications

In conjunction with the development of this strategic plan, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO is committed to making strategic thinking and execution of the strategic plan a primary responsibility of USPTO executives, with monitoring implementation of the plan, and keeping employees, stakeholders and the public informed of progress their primary task.

Other Accompanying Information:  List of Initiatives

Goal 1 – Optimize Patent Quality and Timeliness

Goal 2 – Optimize Trademark Quality and Timeliness

Goal 3 – Improve Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement Domestically and Abroad

Management Goal:  Achieve Organizational Excellence

Other Accompanying Information:  Transition from The 21^st Century Strategic Plan 

The 21^st Century Strategic Plan was submitted to the Congress in February 2003 in conjunction with the President's budget for fiscal year 2004. In February 2006, a document describing the significant adjustments to that Plan was included with the President's budget for fiscal year 2007. The following initiatives, originally identified in the 21^st Century Strategic Plan, are being continued in this plan.

Legislative Initiatives

Patent and Trademark Fees – On November 9, 2005, the House Judiciary Committee approved on a voice vote, without amendment, H.R. 2791, the "United States Patent and Trademark Fee Modernization Act of 2005." The bill, which awaits House floor action, would make permanent the fee schedule currently in effect for fiscal years 2005 and 2006 pursuant to the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005 (Pub.L. 108-447). The bill includes a provision (identical to that contained in H.R. 1561, as passed by the House in the 108th Congress) that would establish a rebate mechanism to be available if USPTO fee collections in a fiscal year exceed the amount appropriated to USPTO in that year.

Currently pending House and Senate versions of fiscal year 2007 appropriations (H.R. 5672) would extend the effective date of the current fee schedule through the end of fiscal year 2007, consistent with the President's budget request. As of October 1, 2006, the current fee schedule continues in effect pursuant to section 124 of Division B (Continuing Resolution) of H.R. 5631 (Pub.L. 109-289), Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2007.

Patent Quality – The USPTO actively supports two proposals pending before Congress that are widely supported throughout the IP community and would directly improve patent quality:  a post-grant review procedure and a new procedure for submission of prior art. The USPTO continues to review the other proposals before the House and Senate as part of H.R. 2795/S.3818, the Patent Reform Act of 2006.

A new post-grant review procedure, originally recommended by the USPTO in the 21st Century Strategic Plan and currently under consideration in Congress, is intended to improve upon existing administrative reexamination alternatives. It would serve as a quicker, lower cost alternative to expensive litigation in reviewing patent validity questions. Such a procedure would complement rather than displace ongoing quality-focused initiatives at USPTO, which include measures to address the hiring, training, certification and retention of an adequate number of examiners. Under this plan, the USPTO will work with the Congress and other stakeholders in developing a post-grant review procedure that effectively serves the interests of the patent community.

While the USPTO currently has a procedure for submission of prior art after publication, which allows submission by third parties within two months of publication, the procedure does not allow explanations or other information about the patents or publications. The Congress is examining a procedure for the submission of third-party prior art as part of H.R. 2795/S.3818. We encourage consideration of a change to the statute governing this procedure to allow submissions by third parties after pre-grant publication. Such a change would allow those interested parties to explain why the prior art would have a negative impact on the patentability of the claims. This process would provide the examiner with information that might not otherwise be obtained during the examination process. We look forward to working with the Congress and other stakeholders to develop a submission procedure that effectively and fairly balances the interests of the patent applicant, interested third parties and the general public.

The USPTO continues to consider various other legislative proposals, originally contained in the 21st Century Strategic Plan, for possible inclusion in a package of recommendations to the Congress as the legislative process proceeds on patent reform. These issues include restriction practice reform, simplification of patent term adjustment procedures, wider publication of patent applications and assignee filing.

Outsourcing Initiatives

In the 21^st Century Strategic Plan, the USPTO had proposed initiatives for several Patent functions:  Classifying patent documents, transitioning to a new global patent classification system, and competitively sourcing prior-art searches. The first two are currently under way.

Competitively sourcing prior-art searches was originally delayed due to legislative changes. In September 2005, the USPTO awarded contracts to two commercial firms to participate in a PCT search program that would serve as a pilot for commercial searches of national stage applications. After the initial six-month base period expired, the pilots were concluded due to several factors, including the quality of searches, the capacity to handle increased workloads, and financial, timeliness and management considerations.

The USPTO concluded that the restrictions imposed by Public Law 108-447 and the conflict of interest clause significantly reduced the pool of potential contractors and opportunities for success. The USPTO further decided to no longer pursue this initiative.

The draft strategic plan includes an initiative to outsource the PCT Chapter I search and opinion work for up to 20,000 PCT applications per year. This initiative is solely a pendency reduction initiative and not a pilot for outsourcing national stage application searches. Further, the new contract solicitations will not have a domestic source requirement, but will have a modified conflict of interest clause.

Periodic Recertification for Registered Practitioners and Disciplinary Initiatives

Goal 1, Objective 1, contains an initiative that will finalize the work initiated in the 21^st Century Strategic Plan by developing a program for Continuing Legal Education, implementing an annual registration fee, and reviewing qualification to practice before the Office.

International Activities

Work Sharing

• Work sharing was implemented with the JPO for a one-year trial starting July 3, 2006.
  
• The USPTO and the JPO implemented the "Patent Prosecution highway" on a trial basis. This enables participating Offices to take advantage of work results provided by the Office of First Filing, is accomplished through utilization of existing accelerated examination procedures in each Office, and provides applicants with fast track examination for qualifying cases.
  
• The EPO is waiting until the end of the one-year trial to evaluate its feasibility in joining with this effort.
  
• A memorandum of understanding is expected to be drafted by the end of this fiscal year for PCT Chapter I searches to IP Australia. The implementation date is yet to be determined.
  
• The Trilateral Offices are now utilizing the 2006 examiner exchange program to improve on recordation of search history for each office. The 2006 program is conducted in three phases. The first exchange was conducted at USPTO in May 2006. The second exchange will be at the EPO in October 2006, and the 3rd exchange will be at the JPO in Spring 2007.
  
• All items under the work sharing umbrella link to Goal 3, Objective 2 (Continue efforts to develop unified standards for international IP practice).
  

Pursuit of Patent Harmonization and PCT Reform

• Activities are on going and link to Goal 3, Objective 2.
  
• An agreement with the Korean Intellectual Property Office to act as an International Searching Authority/International Preliminary Examination Authority for the USPTO was signed in December 2005 and fully implemented on January 1, 2006. This is also an example of on-going activities under Goal 3, Objective 2.

Unity Standard

The USPTO studied changes needed to adopt a unity standard, including solicitation of public comments. A "Green Paper" was published for comment in June 2005. Based on the comments, no consensus was reached on the Green Paper options, and the USPTO expects to conclude the study.

Trademark E-government

Goal 2, Objective 3 of the strategic plan contains an initiative to implement TIS as a truly electronic workflow environment to manage correspondence from pre- 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.

Patent File Wrapper

Goal 1, Objective 2 of the draft plan contains an initiative that will finalize the work initiated in the 21^st Century Strategic Plan to modernize the electronic data processing infrastructure to include a robust text-based electronic patent application file management system.

Other Accompanying Information:  Glossary of Acronyms and Abbreviations

Strategic Plan 2007-2012 >>