Department of Commerce July 9, 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is seeking public input on optimal patent first action and total pendency target levels. The current targets of ten month average first action pendency and twenty month average total pendency were established with stakeholder input in the previous USPTO 2010-2015 Strategic Plan. In the USPTO 2014-2018 Strategic Plan, the USPTO included an initiative to ``work with stakeholders to refine long-term pendency goals, while considering requirements of the IP community''. The USPTO recognizes the importance of continually refining and defining optimal pendency to take into consideration the external environment affecting workload inputs, the commitments made to the fee paying public, and the need to ensure a balance between workload, production capacity, and requirements of the Intellectual Property (IP) community. As a first step in beginning that initiative, the USPTO is seeking public input about IP community's suggestions for optimal patent first action and total pendency target levels.