Patent and Trademark Office Issues Performance and Accountability Report

According to this report on Docuticker, the USPTO has just issued its FY 2007 Performance and Accountability Report. Patent quality and productivity are at historic highs, according to the USPTO press release. In 2007, patent examiners examined the highest number of applications in history—362,227, and quality compliance was at 96.5%, equaling last year’s results. In addition, patent examiner decisions were upheld by the patent appeals board 69% of the time, up from 51% in 2005.

For the second year in a row, the USPTO exceeded all of its trademark-related performance goals: a record number of applications were examined—323,527. Quality was up 97.4%. And, the average time from filing an initial trademark application to a preliminary decision was below 3 months.