Director's Blog: the latest from USPTO leadership

An Update on Our Dallas, Denver, and Silicon Valley Offices

Blog by Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Acting Director of the USPTO Teresa Stanek Rea

Last year we began providing a series of blog updates on the progress of our satellite offices, in August, September, and December. This tradition continued with an update on our Elijah J. McCoy Satellite Office in Detroit, which just celebrated its first year of operation last week.

Today I want to update you on the progress of our satellite offices in Dallas, Denver, and Silicon Valley, locations we identified in July 2012 as part of an America Invents Act (AIA) mandate. Given current budget constraints under sequestration, our efforts to move into permanent spaces for those three locations will be delayed, but continuing to operate from the temporary spaces and striving to grow our presence in the satellite office locations remains a top agency priority.

All three locations currently have temporary offices staffed by Patent Trial and Appeal Board judges, who are helping reduce the board’s inventory of appeal cases and AIA trials, which in turn helps drive down cost-prohibitive court appearances and resolves disputes earlier and more efficiently.

These judges have been at work in the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood since January, the Santa Fe Federal Building in Dallas since March, and the Menlo Park Science Center in Silicon Valley since April. We will continue to monitor our fee collections and hire more judges for the satellite offices whenever resources are available.

In addition to the work of our judges, Silicon Valley Office Director Michelle Lee continues to actively engage with the public and our stakeholders across the West, just as our Detroit office has done so effectively in the Midwest with independent inventor conferences and partnerships with local inventor associations. The Silicon Valley Office’s activities will continue to include:

• Participating in our newly formed Software Partnership, which collected comments in February that will contribute to our advancement of President Obama’s White House initiative to curtail abusive patent litigation;
• Hosting local training programs on AIA topics such as the new first-inventor-to-file rules and PTAB proceedings;
• Planning additional STEM workshops to train K-12 teachers in the local school districts on innovation, entrepreneurship, and intellectual property; and
• Building relationships with local innovators, officials, industries, intellectual property bar associations, incubators, venture capitalists, and universities.

Permanent locations for the satellite offices have been identified at the Terminal Annex Federal Building in Dallas and the Byron G. Rogers Federal Office Building in Denver, public facilities already operated by the General Services Administration (GSA). No similar space was available in the delineated area for Silicon Valley. Our relocation to permanent office spaces in Dallas and Denver has been delayed, and the GSA, which owns and operates public facilities, has suspended its solicitation process for permanent space in Silicon Valley. We will continue monitoring our fee collections to determine when we can move forward on permanent office spaces in these locations.

In the face of current budget constraints, we remain committed to serving the public with permanent locations in all four continental U.S. time zones, ensuring that the full promise of the AIA is realized. Expanding the level of public access to the USPTO, its resources, and processes remains one of my top priorities, and I look forward to keeping you updated on our progress in the months ahead.

Posted at 06:45AM Jul 19, 2013 in USPTO  |  Comments[2]