Yesterday the USPTO held the first day of its two-day Patent Quality Summit. The event is part of the USPTO’s new “Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative,” which will investigate three quality “pillars” including excellence in USPTO work products, excellence in measuring patent quality, and excellence in customer service, and six related proposals.
USPTO Director MICHELLE LEE and newly announced Deputy Director RUSSELL SLIFER opened the program and welcomed an expert panel for the morning session on “Perspectives on the Importance of Quality.” The panel included retired Federal Circuit Chief Judge PAUL MICHEL, IPO Board Members MANNY SCHECHTER (IBM) and ROY WALDRON (Pfizer), and Professor DENNIS CROUCH (Missouri), among others.
Panelists agreed that quality depended on shared responsibility between applicants and examiners, not the USPTO alone. Many panelists highlighted clear claim scope and a complete record as essential to quality, though no absolute definition for the term emerged.
The afternoon session explored the first excellence pillar and included lively questions and brainstorming break-outs on proposals regarding (1) applicant requests for prosecution review of selected applications, and (2) automated pre-examination search.
Day two of the Quality Summit will be held today. It will examine the second and third pillars and proposals 3-6: improving clarity of the record; review of and improvement to quality metrics; review of the current compact prosecution model and the effect on quality; and in-person interview capability with all examiners. The program will be webcast.
