Patent Quality Assurance

OPQA audits a random sample of work product each fiscal year. The results from the OPQA random reviews are used to generate the USPTO’s statutory compliance measures.

OPQA reviews work product based on the statutory compliance standard. Examiner Office actions are reviewed for statutory compliance by evaluating whether the Office action includes appropriate and clear determinations for every pending claim based on the four patentability statutes:

• 35 U.S.C. §102 - Novelty
• 35 U.S.C. §103 - Non-Obviousness
• 35 U.S.C. §112 – Specification (Enablement, Written Description, Definiteness)
• 35 U.S.C. §101 – Inventions Patentable (Subject Matter Eligibility, Utility)

To comply with the statutory compliance standard, rejections must be correct and must, at a minimum, appropriately (1) identify the claim and relevant statute and (2) set forth sufficient evidence to put a person skilled in the art on notice as to why the claim is considered unpatentable. In addition, failure to make a rejection under a statutory basis that should have been made (that is, omitted rejection) results in the work product not complying with the statutory compliance standard.

The random sample of Office actions reviewed by OPQA for statutory compliance generates an overall compliance metric for each statute. The metrics are calculated by dividing the total number of Office actions that properly evaluated all pending claims in light of the patentability statutes by the total number of Office actions reviewed. The statutory compliance metrics are then expressed as a percentage of Office actions reviewed that properly handled all claims in the application and can be further broken by relevant statute.

The compliance metrics generated by OPQA are validated in part through Technology Center (TC) feedback as part of the rebuttal process, by comparisons to quality reviews performed in the TCs and data collected from external perception surveys. In addition, OPQA does not have any targets or incentives based on the findings of noncompliance, but does monitor the consistency of OPQA reviews as an additional validation.

The granularity of data obtained by reviewing all claims in an Office action for statutory compliance provides meaningful feedback to TC management and quality assurance specialists. The data facilitates the identification of quality trends, training opportunities, as well as an evaluation of recent training at the corps level and below.

Below is a link to summary of data collected in the Master Review Form (MRF) as a result of the OPQA random reviews over the last fiscal year.

MRF Data Summary Table – Fiscal Year (FY) 2024

At the start of each fiscal year, a goal for the total number of OPQA random reviews is set based on the USPTO’s data needs and available resources. In recent years, the goal has been to randomly review approximately 12,000 work products in a given fiscal year. This yearly volume of reviews provides sufficient data to identify corps wide trends, provide TC level insight for select topics, and allows the USPTO to answer many inquiries from our stakeholders in a timely manner.

The random sample of work product reviewed by OPQA is representative of the population of work product the Patents organization completes and mails, both by Office action type (that is, non-final rejection, final rejection, and allowance) as well as by technology-type. To accomplish this, OPQA randomizes all Office actions mailed within a previous seven-day period to create a randomized pull list. Review Quality Assurance Specialists (RQASes) from OPQA are then assigned Office actions for review from the randomized pull list based on their assigned technology area.

The external stakeholder perception survey is designed to capture feedback from USPTO's frequent customers regarding their perceptions of the quality of work performed by USPTO patent examiners. The perception survey uses a rotating panel design in order to measure changes in the quality of USPTO's work over time. Customers participate in two consecutive data collection periods (waves) before rotating out of the panel. The panels are staggered to refresh 50% of the respondent pool each wave. The target population for the survey is those customers that have had the most contact with USPTO over the prior year, currently defined as filing 6 or more patent applications in a 12-month period. This population (approx. 18,000 customers) has historically represented 80-85% of all filed patent applications. Sample size for each wave is around 2,900 customers. Roughly 50% of the sampled customers respond to the survey which is administered via internet and mail.

These work product reviews are performed by OPQA’s 60+ RQASes in OPQA. RQASes are primary examiners with a proven history of high-quality patent examination.  Organized by technical disciplines, RQASes are very familiar with the technology being reviewed, much like Examiners are in the Technology Centers for patent application examination. RQASes are responsible for performing timely, substantively and procedurally sound reviews. RQASes are required to be thoroughly familiar with all patent examination tools, and to keep abreast of the latest patent rules and regulations. Each team of RQASes are supervised by a Supervisory Quality Review Assurance Specialist (SRQAS), commonly referred to as a Quality Lead (QL), who ensure that reviews performed by RQASes are consistent, substantive and procedurally accurate.

OPQA completes reviews of work product in addition to the yearly random sampling, such as reviews of work product of newly hired Examiners at the Patent Training Academy to assess the effectiveness of a training class, reviews of work product with respect to case studies to identify areas for improvement, and reviews of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Written Opinions to ensure contractors are producing high-quality work product for the USPTO.

In addition to completion of quality reviews, OPQA, in combination with our Chief Statistician’s Office at the USPTO, administers internal and external quality surveys as tools to assess the perception of the quality of patent examination.  Results from such surveys are compared to statutory compliance statistics to ensure the perception of our quality is aligned with our metrics.