Quality U.S. patents drive our economy and solve world problems

At the USPTO, patent quality is built into Goal 2 of our 2022-2026 Strategic Plan, which focuses on promoting the efficient delivery of reliable IP rights. Achieving Goal 2 means meeting both the increased demand for utility and design patents and maintaining the quality standards that make U.S. patents the gold standard in the global IP system. For more on the USPTO’s comprehensive approach to addressing patent application pendency and reducing the backlog, which are key to accomplishing Goal 2, see my recent blog on pendency.

Now, I want to lay out our system of checks and balances related to patent quality. 

From seeking public feedback, to weighing in with the courts, to providing technical advice to Congress and, most importantly, to prioritizing our internal operations and policies, the USPTO dedicates significant resources to improving the robustness and reliability of patents.

Hiring, onboarding, and retaining examiners

Quality begins with our 9,000-plus patent examiners. 

We must and do hire and retain the most talented engineers, technology experts, and scientists. And we must hire substantially more examiners so that, going forward, we can address our backlog and new applications with the same focus we offer today, while continuing to use training, technology, and resources to improve quality. 

For fiscal year (FY) 2024, we removed all caps on hiring. We started with a goal of hiring 800 examiners and came in at 969. To increase the numbers, we branched out into new markets and schools. We kept our quality standards high and chose those 969 examiners from over 16,000 who applied. For FY 2025, we aim to hire more than 1,600 new examiners.

But we know that just hiring new examiners is not enough. That’s why we are equally focused on retaining the great examiners we already have. When I came on board at the USPTO in 2022, one of the first things I did was to listen to examiners about their experiences and what more we could do to support them to do their best for American inventors. After hearing from over 2,000 of my colleagues, three issues rose to the surface:

1. Working hours
2. Routing and classification
3. Pay  

Before new examiners begin their first day, we gather them for our new “Accepted Day,” to keep them engaged and connect them with a cohort of their peers. They hear from me directly about how important they will be to the agency, our mission, and our country, and they have a chance to connect with our examining corps and learn about other resources to ensure their success. New examiners then receive extensive training. 

Beginning on their first day, utility patent examiners undergo four months of comprehensive, full-time onboarding followed by eight months of a post-onboarding, on-demand curriculum and mentorship from experienced examiners. New design examiners receive six weeks of intensive, full-time onboarding starting on day 1, and they are then paired with an experienced trainer for continued post-onboarding coaching.

In total, our 2024 cohort of examiners received over 590,000 hours of formalized training during their first year on the job. For our 2025 cohort, we will pilot a hybrid patent training academy for new examiners to enhance connections and amplify current training programs.

Continual process improvement

We are continually listening to examiners on what more we can do to improve quality. 

As part of this work, we launched our first-ever Research and Development (R&D) Unit in 2023. We are currently testing ideas to:

1. Create a stronger and clearer prosecution history, including evaluating procedures for ensuring added subject matter is supported by the specification 
2. Provide more specificity where it matters when it comes to interview summaries 

The R&D Unit will not only let us hone those ideas, but will facilitate our work with our Patents union, the Patent Office Professionals Association, to negotiate permanent solutions that are mission-driven and people-focused.

Commissioner for Patents Vaishali Udupa speaks on November 12, 2024, at a ceremony of the Supervisory Patent Examiners and Classifiers Organization. (USPTO photo)

Tools and support

It’s critical that our examiners have the best tools and support for their work – from form paragraphs that allow examiners to focus on substantive examination, to substantive guidance, to the promotion of more collaboration among examiners, especially when a patent application touches on innovation from different technology centers. 

We must provide examiners the best tools to efficiently identify the best prior art. All patent examiners use the Patents End-to-End (PE2E) Search suite, and more than half regularly use PE2E’s artificial intelligence (AI) search features, including “More Like This Document” and “Similarity Search.” Since September 2022, examiners have run more than 1.5 million PE2E queries using these AI-powered features. 

We also have processes through which examiners can learn from prior art identified in foreign applications or art identified during Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) challenges in related applications. And we are currently working to investigate other uses of AI to improve the prior art search and other functions in patent examination.

We’re continually reviewing and updating guidance and our Manual of Patent Examining Procedure. We’re providing training to our examiners to ensure they’re acting in accordance with the latest laws and court rulings and that patent practitioners and owners have transparency and confidence in the examining process. 

A recent example is that, within a day of the en banc Federal Circuit decision in LKQ Corp. v. GM Global Technology Operations LLC, No. 2021-2348 (Fed. Cir. May 21, 2024), we issued a memorandum to provide updated guidance and examination instructions on evaluating obviousness in design patent applications and design patents. This past July, in response to input to our request for comments on subject matter eligibility in critical and emerging technologies, including AI, we issued our 2024 Guidance Update on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility, Including on Artificial Intelligence. And in response to feedback on inventorship for AI-assisted inventions, we issued inventorship guidance.

Continuous examiner training

In addition to training on new cases and guidance, examiners receive continuous training throughout their careers to stay current on trends in technology and changes in U.S. IP policy.

In FY 2024, the Training for Experienced Examiners program provided 20,000 hours of training across 50 topic areas mostly focused on practice and procedure. An additional 39,455 hours of training were provided on 49 topic areas identified by examiners and developed through the Patent Training Council.

We also worked with stakeholder groups like the American Intellectual Property Law Association and the Intellectual Property Owners Association to share the stories of patent owners’ experiences to show our examiners the impact of their work. 
 

The Patent Examiner Technical Training Program provided 47,000 hours of live training to examiners from leading scientists, engineers, professors, industrial designers, and other technology experts from major companies and universities. And we provided an additional 9,253 hours through Tech Training on Demand opportunities.

Our Site Experience Education Program provides direct engagement for patent examiners through field visits to labs, studios, and offices where scientists, designers, and engineers are making innovation. 

We also regularly meet directly with stakeholders through our Patents Customer Partnership Meetings to share ideas, experiences, and insights and to discuss examination policies and procedures, and solutions for improvement.  

And we have targeted training programs and partnerships to ensure examiners stay current on the latest emerging technologies. For example, given the rise in patents on AI machine learning functions, the USPTO has:

1. Partnered with Carnegie Mellon University to create a 21-course curriculum covering everything from the foundations of AI to its application in tools. Examiners say, “This training series tickles my mind about AI and makes me want to do additional research to understand the concepts even better,” and “For the first time ever, I feel like I can actually understand the language of AI.”
2. Launched an AI learning portal as a central point for AI training resources for all USPTO employees across different roles and organizational contexts. 
3. Held the inaugural event in our AI and Emerging Technologies Premier Lecture Series. The first lecture featured Mark Papermaster, the chief technology officer and executive vice president of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Papermaster spoke on the transformative power of AI and explored important considerations such as power consumption, data privacy and protection, and responsible AI.

Quality assessment and action

Within our Patents business unit, there’s a multi-tiered system of continuous quality assessments to hold examiners accountable. 

The first tier is at the art unit level, where quality is included as a critical element of every patent examiner’s performance evaluation, with supervisory patent examiners (SPEs) formally reviewing the quality of all examiners’ work quarterly. Additionally, SPEs and primary examiners provide ongoing coaching and feedback to junior examiners throughout the year.

Mark Papermaster, AMD’s chief technology officer, speaks on October 29, 2024, at the USPTO’s AI and Emerging Technologies Premier Lecture Series. (Photo by Michael Connor/USPTO)

The second tier is at the Technology Center (TC) level. Each TC has a team of quality assurance specialists who track quality trends and deliver targeted training to art units and workgroups in areas identified for improvement or as a regular refresher.

For the third tier, multiple teams are dedicated to ensuring the USPTO issues robust and reliable patents. The Office of Patent Quality Assurance (OPQA) supports our foundational efforts to measure and bolster patent reliability and consistency; it also tracks our publicly available key performance indicators. The OPQA regularly surveys our customers to gather direct feedback on the perception of the quality of examination and to identify areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. 

How are we doing?

Our quality metrics show that patent quality is increasing, alongside an increase in customer satisfaction.

In FY 2024, we exceeded compliance targets with the four patentability statutes under title 35 of the U.S. Code: 

1. Section (§) 101 – Subject matter eligibility 
2. § 102 – Novelty
3. § 103 – Non-obviousness 
4. § 112 – Specification 

The number of Office actions containing rejections and found by the OPQA to have a noncompliance issue has decreased by 25% since 2020. And in the last five years, there has been a 30% decrease in findings of noncompliance across all types of actions.

In FY 2024, more than 6,000 randomly selected frequent customers were invited to participate in a semi-annual quality survey. These patent agents, attorneys, and inventors received over 100,000 Office actions during the survey time frame. More information on how these stakeholders were selected to provide their feedback is available on our quality metrics webpage. 

Of the surveyed customers:

1. 61% rated patent quality as good or excellent (among the highest rankings since such surveys began in 2006). 
2. 83% said the employees they worked with at a Patents Contact Center were helpful. This exceeded targeted performance levels.

How can you help?

Patent quality is not a static goal. We’re always looking for ways to increase public awareness of the importance of patent quality and the USPTO’s holistic efforts. Members of the patent community also have a role to play with respect to quality. 

We view patent quality as a shared responsibility. We’re evaluating opportunities to collaborate on patent quality with our diverse stakeholders, including independent inventors, small businesses, industry, and bar organizations. There are also many existing avenues for you to help us ensure we maintain our high standards of quality. 

As a patent applicant, we offer many resources to help you submit strong applications, setting the foundation for a high-quality patent. For example, our implementation of DOCX application filing is part of our effort to modernize and streamline our patent application systems, and it also supports patent application quality by offering pre-submission content validation, which can help reduce conversion errors, among other benefits. More than 90% of current filings are submitted through DOCX and can take advantage of these benefits.

We’ve worked to improve the customer experience when filing for a patent, starting with the issuance of a welcome letter from Deputy Director Derrick Brent and me, explaining all the ways to get assistance. We also recently launched a pilot program to study the benefits of sending certain applicants a follow up letter after they receive the first Office action. This letter further explains the application process and outlines additional resources and assistance relevant to that stage. And the USPTO has rolled out, expanded, or extended several other pilot programs for patent applicants, including a pre-application assessment for eligible first-time patent applicants. This is all in addition to long-standing support from the USPTO, such as our Patent Pro-Bono Program that provides no-cost legal assistance to those who qualify.

While the USPTO is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, we have partnerships with libraries across the nation through our Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC) program. PTRCs provide trainings throughout the year, held online and in person, to help future applicants submit the best possible patent applications and documents.

If you are a stakeholder, innovator, scientist, designer, or engineer, you can collaborate with us on some of the training I mentioned above. Learn more in my blog post on opportunities to participate.

Loletta “Lolita” Darden (center), chair of the USPTO’s Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC), speaks at PPAC’s September 5, 2024, public meeting. To the left of Darden is Deputy Director Brent, and to the right of Darden is PPAC Vice Chair Charles Duan. (Photo by Michael Connor/USPTO)

You can also get involved in the advisory process by attending a quarterly meeting of our Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC), which, among other actions, reviews and makes recommendations to the USPTO on policies, budgets, and patent fees. Or you can attend a Patents Customer Partnership Meeting, which provides you with opportunities to meet with USPTO representatives in a collaborative environment.

The USPTO team members are here to answer your questions about the entire process. Call or email the staff (via our Contact Us webpage) on informal matters, respond formally to official letters such as Office actions, and contact the Patents Ombuds Office for further assistance.

Are we done?

The short answer is no. We will never be done with our work to improve the robustness and reliability of granted patents. In an increasingly interconnected global economy and with the advent of emerging technology such as AI, there will always be new opportunities and threats that can affect the quality of patents.

But a robust and reliable patent system ensures that important innovative breakthroughs and achievements reach American households. It encourages innovators and potential investors to dedicate human and financial resources to technological advances that improve the quality of daily life and expand the storehouse of American know-how for future generations. Through rigorous assessment standards and innovation of our own, the USPTO will continue to ensure that the innovation that fuels our economy, creates jobs, and solves world problems will remain protected.

If you have suggestions for further improvements, please email me at [email protected].