PTO Releases FY 2015 Performance, Accountability Report

The Patent and Trademark Office Tuesday released its FY 2015 performance and accountability report (PAR), which detailed the agency's financial and performance measurement results and compared them to the previous fiscal year's. The PTO finished FY 15, which ended Sept. 30, 2.7 percentage points, or $76,615, ahead of its FY 2014 amount in total assets, and increased total earned revenue by 1.9 percentage points to $3.07 million, the report said. The agency also increased its federal personnel in FY 15 by 217 employees. In its performance measurements, the PTO didn't meet its target goal of a 16.4-month average first-action patent pendency, finishing with an average of 17.3 months, or its goal of a 83-91 patent quality composite score -- finishing FY15 with a score of 42.9. The PTO also failed to meet its goal of training 6,300 foreign government officials on best practices to protect and enforce intellectual property, it said. The PTO met or exceeded several of its target objectives, including average total patent pendency, average first-action trademark pendency, total average trademark pendency and exceptional office action, the report said. "While the PAR is a record of our achievements, it is also an honest discussion of the challenges we face as an agency moving forward in FY 2016," PTO Chief Financial Officer Tony Scardino said in a blog post Tuesday. Scardino said the PTO will continue efforts in the current fiscal year in managing the transition to a "steady-state operation" as the patent activity comes closer to achieving its pendency and inventory targets and establishing an Office of the Deputy Commissioner.