Introducing the Trademarks Dashboard
Guest Blog by Commissioner for Trademarks Deborah Cohn
The USPTO launched its first Data Visualization Center Dashboard in October to provide access to patent application and pendency. This month, we are pleased to announce the launch of the Trademarks Dashboard, which has been modeled on the Patent Dashboard’s success and format.
An important part of the USPTO’s mission is to increase awareness and understanding of intellectual property. One of the many ways we can do that is to create a better understanding of the most critical metrics that contribute to examining and issuing patents and registering trademarks -- pendency and quality -- as well as making those measures more transparent to the public.
Trademark pendency has reached historically low levels as measured by the time from filing to first action; and, at disposal or total pendency, the average time from filing to registration, notice of allowance or abandonment of the application. Our challenge now is to maintain consistent monthly first action pendency within a 2.5 to 3.5 month range with disposal pendency at 12.5 months or less as filings increase and fluctuate on a monthly basis. The dashboard provides greater visibility by showing both pendency metrics based on the method of filing.
Trademark quality is a critical measure for improving quality by evaluating and developing training guides and reporting metrics based on the results of a review of examination quality. We continue to refine and improve the measurement of quality as evidenced by the new “excellent Office action” quality measure that was introduced this year to define excellence of the initial search strategy, decision making, and writing. This measure is an added dimension of the first and final Office action compliance measures.
This tool will give everyone access to measures presenting trademark pendency, quality, application filings, registrations, and an assessment of inventory for pending applications as well as new applications awaiting the examining attorney’s first Office action. This information will help the entire IP community to better understand our processes, and enable applicants to make more informed decisions about their applications. The new addition to the USPTO Data Visualization Center will be updated quarterly, and will also track the past three years of performance metrics to show trends as well as targets where appropriate. We intend to further refine the dashboard and welcome your input about ways we can improve it. A dedicated mailbox has been set up for your comments.
We hope you’ll find the new Trademarks Dashboards to be a valuable resource and we welcome any feedback you have on how we can make these resources even better.
Posted at 10:16AM May 11, 2011 in trademarks |