The USPTO: Using the Bar to set the bar

01 May 2010

USPTO Commissioner for Trademarks Lynne Beresford spoke with Eileen McDermott about the Office’s plans for improvement

Survey respondents were quite critical of the consistency of decisions among examiners – is that something the Office is working on?

The Office has been working on it for years. It's not easy – there are 376 different examining attorneys working on different matters in the Office. Last year, we implemented a consistency mailbox, but we've only had about 16 emails. We talked about it endlessly when we opened it – we spoke about it at the INTA Annual Meeting and in other speeches that we made, we sent an announcement out on our email listserve and published it on our website – but we feel like it's been a failure. Part of the reason is because applicants know that the Office can go one of two ways in making its decision, so there's a certain amount of reluctance there. Soon we'll be expanding it though.

What other efforts are underway to improve consistency? The...

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