USPTO News: Patent Office Calls Continuing Education Pilot Program a Success

    By Donald Zuhn --

Last fall, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that it was seeking up to a thousand registered practitioners to help with a pilot test of the Office's new online Continuing Education for Practitioners (CEP) system (see "Patent Office Seeking Volunteers to Test Continuing Education System").  Yesterday, the Patent Office issued a statement announcing that the pilot program had been completed, and that the program was a success.

Under the CEP program that the Patent Office is expected to eventually implement, practitioners will be presented with "brief educational materials" concerning "recent changes to USPTO rules and procedures, revised patent statutes, and helpful hints concerning practice before the USPTO," and will then be prompted to respond to "one or more verification questions."  For the pilot, participants were presented with three educational courses:  (1) USPTO examination guidelines following KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc.; (2) common errors in petitions practice; and (3) electronic signatures and powers of attorney.

The Patent Office noted that 864 registered patent practitioners (652 attorneys and 212 agents) were accepted as volunteers to participate in the pilot program.  The program ran from September 3 to September 30, 2008 (applicants were initially given until September 23rd to complete the course, but the Office later extended the deadline to September 30th).  The Office indicated that 59.4% (513) of the volunteers completed their course by the initial deadline and 77.4% (669) completed their course by the extended deadline (88.4% of all volunteers at least accessed the online system during the pilot).  Patent agents achieved a greater completion rate (83.0%) than did attorneys (75.6%).

Following the pilot, the Patent Office sought feedback from the volunteers.  In its announcement, the Office noted that 406 volunteers had provided written feedback, and that the Office intends to begin implementing improvements to the online system based on this feedback.  As for making the educational program permanent, the Office stated that final rules concerning CEP are "currently under consideration," and that further announcements would be made "as developments occur."

Comments

[paraprops]

Does anyone know if paralegals and support staff eligible to take any of the continuing education classes?

[who]

I took it and it seemed very legalisitc and aimed at attorneys. It was also biased...