Plain language at the USPTO

The Plain Writing Act of 2010 is intended to make government communication clear and understandable for the public. To comply with the act, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), like other federal agencies, must write in a way that is "clear, concise, well-organized, and follows other best practices appropriate to the subject or field or audience." We’re committed to following the Federal Plain Language Guidelines in our written communications. Our plain language efforts are overseen by Communications Manager Eric Atkisson.

Annual compliance reports

We’re required to document our ongoing efforts to comply with the act. You can find past information regarding our plain language efforts within the annual compliance reports on the U.S. Department of Commerce Plain language webpage. We’ll also publish future reports to this page.

FY 2022 Plain Language Report

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) continued to make steady plain language progress in fiscal year 2022, an effort that received a significant boost with the swearing-in of Kathi Vidal as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO on April 13, 2022. After a number of initial conversations with the Office of the Chief Communications Officer (OCCO), including several before she was even sworn in, Vidal made plain language one of her top priorities as Director and proved to be an invaluable spokesperson for it within the agency.

Meanwhile, with the active and energetic support of the Commissioner for Trademarks, the Trademarks plain language team made significant progress in changing attitudes about plain language within their business unit. Using high-production quality trainings and presentations, they began to observe a palpable shift in how plain language is thought about and practiced throughout the organization. Among their major accomplishments, they:

Won a 2022 ClearMark Award of Distinction for the Trademark Basics webpage redesign
Developed long-term plain language strategy to work toward their vision of maximizing plain language across Trademarks
Wrote a Journeys of Innovation story on Amy and Ben Wright, illustrating the value of trademarks and branding for growing businesses
Rewrote 146 definitions for the USPTO.gov glossary to incorporate plain language and align style
Formed a USPTO plain language community of practice by establishing an informal Plain Language Advisory Council
Supported the USPTO Virtual Assistant project by providing all content in plain language, drafting governance documents, and managing the review process
Supported the identity verification project by creating main webpage, forms, communications, and form paragraphs, all in plain language
Contributed to the hiring of multiple plain language writers around the agency
Developed a new section of the website devoted to educating and protecting customers from trademark scams and fraud
Overhauled Trademarks petitions web content to give customers clear direction on how to file petitions during the trademark registration process

Trademarks published 22 new external webpages and six new intranet pages in plain language, and they provided plain language training to Trademark Public Advisory Council members and staff at the Patent and Trademark Resource Centers (PTRCs), Trademark Petitions Office, USPTO Management Council, as well as others throughout the Trademarks organization, including administrative and outreach staff.

While plain language progress in Patents was slower, they did take a critical and noteworthy first step in hiring their first plain language writer-editor in December 2021. They also developed an instructional presentation about plain language for a “road show” among the various art units and the rest of Patents, and they made plain language improvements to revamped public webpages like Patents Basics and the first two modules for an IP identifier tool, as well as a larger number of Patent alerts and OITP announcements.

OCCO, in addition to routinely advocating for plain language to the new Director, her political staff, and other business unit heads, hired two new writer-editors in late FY22 to help enforce plain language in the webpage and email alert review processes. Several OCCO staff members also attended annual plain language conferences and training.

FY 2021 Plain Language Report

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) stood up a plain language “community of practice” in fiscal year 2021 (FY21), dedicated to improving the agency’s compliance with the Plain Writing Act of 2010. As part of this recommitment to federal plain writing guidelines and requirements, the communications division manager in the Office of the Chief Communications Officer (OCCO) became the new plain language POC for the agency, and OCCO updated their USPTO Writing Style Guide to incorporate new and evolving plain language best practices. They also hired a new writer-editor and former writing professor, with extensive plain language experience, as the agency’s new speechwriter, and she became a valuable member of the new plain language team.

The Trademarks business unit emerged as a plain language center of excellence in its hiring strategy and operations in FY21. Their writer-editors became the “go-to” reviewers of all comms projects within Trademarks, with the goal of improving the readability of Trademarks communications. During an organization-wide meeting for management, the Commissioner for Trademarks gave his enthusiastic support to plain language and directed managers and supervisors to embrace it as the standard for communicating.

Some notable plain language products and accomplishments of Trademarks in FY21 included:

Launching Trademark Basics, a suite of 21 new webpages written in plain language that cover the trademark process from start to finish.
Providing plain language training for Trademarks administrative and outreach staff.
Overhauling three webpages to align with Trademarks fee adjustments and writing three Trademark alerts to notify customers in advance—all written in plain language.
Overhauling web content on the Native American tribal insignia database. The updated webpage explains the purpose of the database and provides clear instructions and requirements for tribes to submit their insignia.
Expanding the Protect trademarks section of the USPTO website with five new webpages to assist customers in understanding new scams-related initiatives and how those initiatives impact them.
Updating six webpages, creating two new webpages, and revising the user guide to help customers understand the Trademark Modernization Act (TMA) and navigate the new and overhauled TEAS forms related to the TMA’s expungement and reexamination proceedings.

While significant “cultural” challenges remained in making agency communications clearer, more precise, and more accessible to a wider range of non-technical audiences, the USPTO was nevertheless in a much better place by the end of FY21 than it had been a year prior, with a newly energized plain language community of practice determined to make even greater strides in FY22.

Send us your feedback

If you have difficulty understanding any of our documents or the webpages on our website, or have general feedback related to our plain language compliance, please contact us at PlainLanguage@uspto.gov.