Director's Blog: the latest from USPTO leadership

Introducing the Office of Policy and External Affairs Dashboard

Guest Blog by Administrator for Policy and External Affairs Albert Tramposch

The Office of Policy and External Affairs assists the USPTO Director in advising the President, through the Secretary of Commerce, and other federal agencies on domestic and international intellectual property policy. “External Affairs” or “EA,” as the office is commonly referred to, also promotes the development of intellectual property systems, nationally and internationally, and advocates improvements in training and protecting intellectual property throughout the world.

We are pleased to be launching the first External Affairs dashboard today, and to be providing data each quarter on the following metrics. 

(1) Number of Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) and Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)-PPH and cases filed in the USPTO

(2) Number of educational programs

(3) Number of attendees trained and the countries they represent

(4) Number of countries trained

The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is a framework in which an application whose claims have been determined to be patentable in one country's patent office, called the Office of First Filing (OFF), is eligible to go through an accelerated examination in another country's patent office, called the Office of Second Filing (OSF), with a simple procedure upon an applicant’s request. The PPH, through the use of the search and examination-related information produced by the first office, supports applicants in their efforts to obtain stable patent rights efficiently around the world, reduces the search/examination burden of the second office and improves the quality of the examination of the major patent offices in the world.

Under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), applicants may obtain search/examination results from an accredited "PCT authority." The USPTO has established agreements with several PCT authorities (OFF) to permit applicants to request PPH handling of their applications based on positive results from the PCT search  and examination. Called PCT-PPH, this enables patent applicants to request a fast-track examination procedure in participating offices (OSF) where patent examiners can make use of the work products from the other offices. By requesting that their applications be processed under this procedure, applicants can generally obtain patents more quickly before participating offices. Currently, the USPTO has PPH and PCT-PPH arrangements with 14 other offices.

The Office of Policy and External Affairs dashboard  shows the number of PPH cases filed with the USPTO.

In 2006, the USPTO established the Global Intellectual Property Academy (GIPA), and in 2007, USPTO completed construction of a permanent space for GIPA at the Alexandria, Va., campus.   GIPA offers capacity building programs in the United States and around the world on intellectual property protection, enforcement, and capitalization. Capacity-building programs are offered to patent, trademark and copyright officials, judges, prosecutors, police, customs officials, foreign policy makers, examiners and rights owners. In delivering capacity building programs, GIPA works closely with other United States government agencies, trading partners and international organizations. GIPA provides both multilateral programs and country specific programs. Some programs are developed to address specific legal issues, administrative issues and specific intellectual property areas. USPTO’s GIPA is instrumental in achieving the objectives of halting intellectual property theft and advancing international intellectual property policies.

The dashboard shows the number of educational programs, the number of  attendees  trained by GIPA and the number of countries that they represent.

We hope you’ll find the new USPTO Data Visualization Center  Office of Policy and External Affairs dashboard to be a valuable resource and we welcome any feedback you have on how we can make it even better.

Posted at 10:04AM Apr 28, 2011 in USPTO  |  Comments[1]