GAO Recommends Patent Office Better Define Quality Standards, Assess Examination Time

GAO is recommending the Patent and Trademark Office take steps to more consistently define patent quality and better communicate its patent quality standards in agency-produced documents. GAO said in a report released Wednesday that the number of new patent infringement lawsuits is continuing to rise despite recent PTO efforts to address patent quality. GAO praised PTO for its recent efforts, including the enhanced patent quality initiative, but said the agency’s lack of a consistent definition of patent quality makes it “unable to fully measure progress toward meeting its patent quality goals.” GAO said 70 percent of PTO’s patent examiners don’t believe they have sufficient time to do a thorough review of a patent application given current workloads, meaning PTO should reassess its workload requirements and the time it allots per patent examination. PTO “generally agreed” with the findings and is taking steps to implement the recommendations, GAO said.