Happy Anniversary, Detroit
Blog by Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Acting Director of the USPTO Teresa Stanek Rea
The USPTO will reach a milestone anniversary tomorrow. July 13 marks one full year of operation of the Elijah J. McCoy Satellite Office in Detroit. As the agency’s very first satellite office, it represents a historic achievement for the USPTO. And just as we had planned, our Detroit team—which was led through the first year by Regional Manager Robin Evans—is meeting and exceeding the needs of the agency and the innovative community in and around Detroit.
The Detroit satellite office has expanded our capacity and productivity, despite tough budgetary constraints. And through increased outreach efforts with entrepreneurs and innovators throughout the Midwest, we’re creating a stronger and more efficient patent system locally—one that’s attuned to the needs of the area’s unique ecosystem of creativity and enterprise.
The Detroit office has helped us pursue our goal of cutting into the backlog of unexamined patent applications. We were able to tap into local talent to hire 78 new patent examiners. With the help of these examiners, USPTO decreased the backlog of unexamined patent applications this past year, even though the number of filings continued to increase. Since opening, the Detroit office has already issued several thousand first office actions.
The Detroit office also has expanded the Patent Trial and Appeal Board through the hiring of 10 new judges from the region, with plans to add more. This increase in staff will help the agency reduce its inventory of appeal cases and AIA trials, which in turn will help drive down cost-prohibitive court appearances and resolve disputes earlier and more efficiently. It also allows practitioners to more readily access and navigate the patent appeals process.
The presence of the office in this important American hub of innovation and growth has increased our agency’s ability to support innovators, and provides the Midwest intellectual property community direct and central access to resources that enable inventors to better understand, obtain, maintain, and commercialize their IP rights.
The office offers workshops and seminars that provide local businesses and inventors with tools to develop, license, and distribute technologies and services. We’ve participated in 30 different outreach events in the area and have held several “Saturday Seminars” for local inventors and entrepreneurs to visit the office and learn more about patents and trademarks. In the coming year, we hope to see even more inventors and stakeholders come through our doors.
The Detroit office has offered us opportunities to foster new partnerships with organizations such as the Henry Ford Museum and the Auto Harvest Foundation to host IP awareness and education events. The office also partners with regional inventor associations to highlight and build a consortium of key tools and resources that empower businesses of all sizes to grow and protect their products and services in a global economy.
One year ago, an esteemed group of Michigan’s leaders joined us to officially open this office, including Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, U.S. Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, U.S. Representatives John Dingell, John Conyers, Jr., and Gary Peters, and former U.S. Representative Hansen Clarke. We have been proud to work alongside these leaders, as well as many local businesses and entrepreneurs, all of whom are committed to rev up the engines of the area’s innovation economy and ensure Detroit remains open for business. And now, one year later, there’s still reason to celebrate. We look forward to continuing our efforts to help American entrepreneurs and businesses.
If you have a success story you’d like to share about our Detroit office, I hope you’ll consider posting it in our comments section.
Posted at 09:30AM Jul 12, 2013 in USPTO | Comments[1]
Posted by ChrisWhewell on July 25, 2013 at 03:55 AM EDT #