By Donald Zuhn --
Last week, Jon Dudas (at right), Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), presented the President’s fiscal year 2009 budget request for the USPTO. The Bush Administration is seeking $2.075 billion for the Patent Office, which represents an 8% increase over the FY 2008 budget of $1.916 billion. The Director noted that the FY 2008 budget gave the Patent Office full access to anticipated fee revenues, and the proposed budget for FY 2009 would continue this practice for a fifth consecutive year.
Commenting on the budget proposal, Director Dudas stated that "it provides us the resources to continue our record hiring of patent examiners and to streamline our processes to achieve maximum operational efficiency.” The Director indicated that the Patent Office plans to use its Congressional appropriations to hire 1,200 more patent examiners, expand the Office's telework programs, and improve electronic communications with applicants in 2009.
Reflecting on 2007, Director Dudas noted that the Office had examined more than 362,000 applications in 2007 -- a new high -- while maintaining an "examination compliance rate" of 96.5% -- a 25-year high. The USPTO announcement did not define how it determines the examination compliance rate.
The Patent Office also announced last week that it was making all prior editions of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) available in electronic format on the Office's website. Prior versions of the MPEP, including the original version of the MPEP published in 1948, can be found here. All told, the Patent Office has published 116 editions and revisions of the MPEP between 1948 and August 2006, when the Eighth Edition, Revision 5 was published.
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