• Examined 362,227 applications - the highest number in history.
• Quality compliance was 96.5 percent - equaling last year's results, the best in a quarter century.
• Patent examiner decisions were upheld by the USPTO's patent appeals board 69 percent of the time, up from 51 percent in 2005.

• USPTO's trademark examining attorneys examined a record 323,527 applications.
• Quality was 97.4 percent.
• The quality results exceeded fiscal year 2007 targets.
• The average time from filing an initial trademark application to a preliminary decision from an examining attorney (first action) was below 3 months.

• Accelerated Examination - Available since August 2006, Accelerated Examination provide applicants with a final determination on their patent application within 12 months.

  • Applicants provide focused and detailed information about their inventions, an explanation as to why their inventions are patentable over the prior art, and the most relevant prior art upon filing their application. Applicants are encouraged to engage in live interviews with the patent examiner.

• Peer Review - Begun in June 2007 as a joint initiative with the New York Law School's Institute for Information and Policy, peer review is a pilot project that allows technical experts in computer technology, for the first time, the opportunity to submit annotated technical references relevant to the claims of a published patent application before an examiner reviews it.

  • Studies have shown that when patent examiners have the best data in front of them, they make the correct decisions.

  • However, examiners have a limited amount of time to find and properly consider the most relevant information. This is particularly true in the software-related technologies where code is not easily accessible and is often not dated or well documented. 

The full report can be found here. (PDF)

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