Conyers Applauds New Patent Examiner Count System

(Washington, DC) – House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) released the following statement in response to yesterday’s announcement from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) of a joint labor-management proposal to significantly change the current patent examiner count system.

"The USPTO announced today that there will be major restructuring of the count system to help improve patent examination quality and patent examiner morale. Patent examiner performance is measured in large part by how many patents an examiner can review within a certain period of time. The current ‘count system’ was established over 30 years ago and has long been criticized for not taking into account the challenges of examining modern technology which has radically changed the nature of examiners’ work. The count system has also been cited by the Government Accountability Office as a factor in USPTO’s patent examiner retention problems and a number of experts have identified it as a contributor to the USPTO’s patent pendency problems. I am pleased to see Director Kappos is taking bold action, in partnership with the patent examiners union, to address this problem. I also expect the USPTO to solicit and incorporate stakeholder input on ways to further improve their proposal."