USPTO Monthly Review -- September 2018

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced the latest winners of the Patents for Humanity program. The Patents for Humanity program was launched by the USPTO in February 2012 as part of an initiative promoting game-changing innovations to address long-standing development challenges.

“Each of these recipients showcases the power of innovation to help the less fortunate around the globe,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office Andrei Iancu. “By recognizing and honoring these innovators whose creativity and curiosity dared them to solve some of the toughest humanitarian challenges, we hope this program will continue to inspire countless more to follow in their footsteps.”

To learn more, read the press release.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced it is seeking comments on the draft 2018-2022 Strategic Plan. The draft plan sets out the USPTO's mission-focused strategic goals: to optimize patent quality and timeliness; to optimize trademark quality and timeliness; and to provide domestic and global leadership to improve intellectual property (IP) policy, enforcement, and protection worldwide.

The USPTO welcomes comments on all aspects of the plan. Comments should be sent by email addressed to strategicplanning1@uspto.gov. The USPTO will consider all comments received during the public comment period from Aug. 22 through Sept. 20, and anticipates posting the final strategic plan for FY 2018-2022 on www.uspto.gov in November 2018.

To learn more, read the press release.

Throughout history, inventors and entrepreneurs have transformed our society and helped grow our economy through their ingenuity and dogged perseverance. And the USPTO has been there every step of the way.

I have mentioned in some prior remarks Dr. Eli Harari, an electrical engineer who always tinkered and invented things. He tells, for example, that he invented a new type of fishing rod, although he never fished.

“Imagine how much more successful you’d be,” his wife said, “if you’d invent in a field you knew something about.”

And so he did!

To learn more, read the remarks from USPTO Director Andrei Iancu.

As you may already know from our previous updates, the USPTO has been performing emergency IT maintenance since Wednesday morning due to an issue with the agency’s PALM database, which affects many of our patent filing and payment systems. This issue stems from an internal systems failure and is not the result of any external causes.

I realize this disruption is inconvenient and frustrating to our customers. With that in mind, I am in constant contact with the leadership of Patents and our Patent Trial and Appeal Board about how the systems outage is affecting their customers and the work of our employees.

To learn more, read the statement from USPTO Director Andrei Iancu.

On July 27 and 28, guests poured in to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to participate in the 2018 National Trademark Exposition. This free biennial event supports the USPTO’s mission of educating the public about the vital role intellectual property protections—in this case trademarks— play in our increasingly competitive global marketplace. More than twenty exhibitors, including government entities, non-profits, small businesses, and corporations from all over the country provided thought-provoking interactive displays and educational workshops.

Keynoting at this year’s expo was NBA All-Star, author, and entrepreneur, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I had the opportunity to sit down with Abdul-Jabbar to find out what made him the industry giant he is today—not surprisingly, it is much more than his 7 foot 2 inch stature.

To learn more, read the blog by Linda Hosler, Deputy Program Manager for USPTO partnerships.

Quarterly, the USPTO and the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC), meets at USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. The PPAC reviews the policies, goals, performance, budget, and user fees of patent operations and advises the director on these matters. The latest meeting took place on Aug. 2, 2018.

To learn more, view the agenda and download the PPAC event slides.

On Aug. 14, Deputy Commissioner for Patent Quality Valencia Martin Wallace held the eighth Patent Quality Chat in the 2018 webinar series titled “AIA Trial Statistics from PTAB and Using AIA Trials to Enhance Patent Examination.”

Attendees learned about performance benchmarks of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) for America Invents Act (AIA) trials highlighting inter partes reviews (IPRs). IPRs are trial proceedings in which the PTAB reviews patentability in consideration of prior art (patents or printed publications) provided by third party petitioners. It is this potential prior art that patent examiners are considering, in addition to their regular prior art search, during patent prosecution as part of the Post Grant Outcomes program.

Janet Gongola, Vice Chief Judge for Engagement, Patent Trial and Appeal Board and Jack Harvey, Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Patent Operations presented on how these programs work together to improve patent quality.

Patent Quality Chat is a monthly, lunchtime webinar series designed to provide information on patent quality topics and to gather public input.

To learn more about the July Patent Quality Chat, watch the archived event stream or view the presentation slides. 

On Aug. 17, the USPTO held its second annual Invention-Con 2018, a free, two-day independent inventors’ conference to inform and equip inventors and small businesses with intellectual property expertise. The agenda for Invention-Con 2018 was full of hot topics of interest for inventors and entrepreneurs and the speakers were ready to share their expertise and personal experiences with patents and trademarks.

To learn more, watch the archived event video.

“PTO Director Andrei Iancu Speaks Out Six Months Into Job”
Bloomberg Law

“Commissioner for Trademarks Mary Boney Denison Updates INTA on the USPTO’s Trademark Enforcement Efforts”
Christian Liedtke, INTA

“USPTO New Strategic Plan (Draft)”
Dennis Crouch, Patently-O

“USPTO Announces 2018 Patents for Humanity Winners”
Donald Zuhn, Patent Docs 

“USPTO Issues Updated PTAB Practice Guide for Post-grant Review Proceedings”
Kevin Noonan, Patent Docs

“Patent Office Exploring Artificial Intelligence to Aid Examiners”
Malathi Nayak, Bloomberg

“North Texas Patents on the Rise as DFW Becomes Innovation Hub”
David Kirkpatrick, Dallas Innovates

“Education and fun collide at Camp Invention: Whitko hosted 4th annual event”
Whitley County