USPTO Quality Review is Dysfunctional says USPTO Director Kappos at the 2009 AIPLA Annual Meeting
Director David Kappos stated in his remarks to the 2009 Annual Meeting at the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), that the USPTO's Quality metrics, quality review process, and quality reward systems are "all dysfunctional and backwards". These comments can be heard here in an audio recording on the AIPLA's website of the Director's remarks, but are not available in the printed version of the remarks available on the USPTO's website. The new USPTO director also stated that a USPTO task force is working in conjunction with the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC) to "completely re engineer our quality metrics, our quality review process, and our quality reward systems." Click here to read these remarks posted on the USPTO's website. He also reiterated that "Quality does not equal rejection".
The USPTO Director also stated in his remarks to the AIPLA, that "The backlog of nearly 800,000 patent applications is unacceptable; it stifles innovation and restricts the growth of our economy."
This blog has been stating for some time that the USPTO's quality review metrics, quality review process and reward systems are dysfunctional due to mismanagement; I will go even further to say that the USPTO's quality review systems are key drivers of the USPTO's unprecedented suppression of allowance rates and budget woes which were birthed in the Dudas/Doll era of the USPTO.
At the June 2009 PPAC meeting, USPTO officials reported that the USPTO faced a funding shortfall of approximately $140 M.
The USPTO Director David Kappos recently stated at the September 14, 2009 IPO Annual Conference, that the USPTO is entering fiscal year 2010, with a budget shortfall that now stands at $200 M, which "puts into question the agency's ability to address its mission at any acceptable level". Click here to read the Director's remarks at the USPTO's website. The Director further states that as a result of the USPTO's budget woes, there will be "probably no progress in cutting into the backlog."
During the Dudas/Doll years, the USPTO's quality review systems caused patent applications that endured 'quality review" to languish; and the languishing of these applications was due to USPTO mismanagement. Click here to read an official USPTO email procured under FOIA, where a USPTO official laments the fact that USPTO management permitted patent applications reviewed under the second pair of eyes quality review program, to languish.
During the Dudas/Doll years, quality review was characterized by a rejection culture where managers forced certain examiners to put misguided rejections into their work; these same managers overlooked actual errors in the work of other examiners.
The USPTO's dysfunctional quality metrics, quality review process, and quality reward systems have exacerbated the backlog of patent applications, stifled innovation, restricted the growth of the US economy, and contributed to the USPTO's current budget woes.
Despite the paradigm of USPTO management during the Dudas/Doll era, of expending an inordinate amount of USPTO fees in hiring significant numbers of newer examiners, while simultaneously, seeking to purge the organization of some of the older examiners, this graph that I've generated and posted below, shows that there is very little significant linear correlation between expenditures for personnel (most of which went to costs associated with new hires) and increase in actual patent compliance rates. The graph below shows that only 33 % of the variation in actual patent compliance rate percentages between fiscal years 2005 and 2008 is due to increases in direct personnel services and benefits from 2005 to 2008. I believe the fact that a significant portion of the USPTO's fees were expended in Direct Personnel Services and Benefits, yet only weakly correlated, linearly, with improvements in actual compliance rates, represents a part of the waste of fees that has occurred, contributing to the current budget woes at the USPTO.
Posted by FederalWorker at 10/18/2009 11:47 AM 
Categories: USPTO Quality Initiatives
Tags: Budget woes AIPLA US Patent and Trademark Office USPTO Director Kappos Quality Review
Categories: USPTO Quality Initiatives
Tags: Budget woes AIPLA US Patent and Trademark Office USPTO Director Kappos Quality Review
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