The USPTO recently released its Performance and Accountability Report for Fiscal Year 2010. The Report provides a summary of program and financial results to assess the USPTO’s performance. This article will summarize some of the statistics that were provided in the Report.
At the end of fiscal year 2010, the USPTO work force included 9,507 federal employees. Of those 9,507 employees, 6,225 were patent examiners and 378 were trademark examining attorneys.
The Report provided statistics on the target and actual number of months from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2010 for (1) Patent Average First Action Pendency, which measured the average time in months from filing until an examiner’s initial determination on the patentability of an invention; and (2) Patent Average Total Pendency, which measured the average time in months from filing until the application is issued as a patent or abandoned by the applicant.
(1) Patent Average First Action Pendency (in months)
Fiscal Year - Target – Actual
2006 - 22.0 - 22.6
2007 - 23.7 - 25.3
2008 - 26.9 - 25.6
2009 - 27.5 - 25.8
2010 - 25.4 - 25.7
(2) Patent Average Total Pendency (in months)
Fiscal Year - Target – Actual
2006 - 31.3 - 31.1
2007 - 33.0 - 31.9
2008 - 34.7 - 32.2
2009 - 37.9 - 34.6
2010 - 34.8 - 35.3
The results from 2010 in the two categories above were slightly below target.
The Report also included statistics from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2010 on the percentage of patent applications that were filed electronically. The number of patent applications filed electronically has continued to increase as follows:
Patent Applications Filed Electronically
Fiscal Year - Target – Actual
2006 - 10% - 14.2%
2007 - 40% - 49.3%
2008 - 69% - 71.7%
2009 - 80% - 82.4%
2010 - 90% - 89.5%
Similarly, the Report provided information on the target and actual number of months from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2010 for: (1) Trademark Average First Action Pendency, which measured the number of months from the date of application filing to the first office action; and (2) Trademark Average Total Pendency, which measured the average number of months from date of filing to notice of abandonment (unless a notice of allowance was issued), notice of allowance, or registration for applications based on use in that month.
(1) Trademark Average First Action Pendency (in months)
Fiscal Year - Target - Actual
2006 - 5.3 - 4.8
2007 - 3.7 - 2.9
2008 - 2.5 to 3.5 - 3.0
2009 - 2.5 to 3.5 - 2.7
2010 - 2.5 to 3.5 - 3.0
(2) Trademark Average Total Pendency (in months)
Fiscal Year - Target – Actual
2006 - 16.3 - 15.5
2007 - 14.8 - 13.4
2008 - 14.3 - 11.8
2009 - 13.0 - 11.2
2010 - 13.0 - *
* The average total pendency including suspended and inter partes cases was 13 months. Excluding applications that were suspended or delayed for inter partes proceedings, the average total pendency was 10.5 months. The above 2010 trademark targets were met.
The number of trademark applications filed electronically has also continued to increase:
Trademark Applications Processed Electronically
Fiscal Year - Target - Actual
2008 - Baseline
2009 - 62% - 62.0%
2010 - 65% - 68.1%
The data in the Report will be finalized and reported in the USPTO’s 2011 Performance and Accountability Report.
- Katie Cooper
