{"id":16127,"date":"2018-02-04T10:16:12","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T10:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/legaladvantage.net\/?p=16127"},"modified":"2024-01-16T10:20:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T10:20:03","slug":"challenges-faced-by-uspto-examiners-an-indication-to-outsource-prior-art-search-before-filing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legaladvantage.net\/2018\/02\/challenges-faced-by-uspto-examiners-an-indication-to-outsource-prior-art-search-before-filing\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenges Faced by USPTO Examiners: an Indication to Outsource Prior Art Search Before Filing"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"16127\" class=\"elementor elementor-16127\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-6b09bceb e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"6b09bceb\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-a9859f3 elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"a9859f3\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-xl\">Challenges Faced by USPTO Examiners: an Indication to Outsource Prior Art Search Before Filing<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-42dd5e5 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"42dd5e5\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>USPTO examiners are facing a variety of challenges and pressure while examining patent applications and finding relevant \u201cprior art\u201d. There are various factors affecting the quality of results produced by the USPTO examiners \u2014 the number of applications filed each year, time allotted to an examiner for each application, availability of \u201cprior art\u201d search tools to a USPTO examiner, and relevance and amount of prior art submitted by the applicants. These factors do not allow an examiner to perform a thorough \u201cprior art\u201d search. The number of backlogs of unexamined applications (546,286) in USPTO is proof of this.<\/p><p>The number of patent applications filed every year is enormous as compared to the limited number of patent examiners which is hindering the process of conducting a complete prior art search by the patent examiner. As per a GAO survey, 45% of examiners feel that the large quantity of patent applications is a major cause which makes it somewhat difficult for examiners to perform a thorough prior art search.<\/p><p>As we know while conducting a \u201cprior art\u201d search, we have to check whether the invention is novel or non-obvious. For this, limiting only to US patent references is not an effective strategy and it is essential to search for non-patent literature and foreign references as it plays an important role in establishing the patentability of the invention and also because there is increasing innovation happening in Asian countries like China, Japan and Korea.<\/p><p>USPTO has taken various actions to overcome this issue but are mostly unsuccessful due to the limitations of the searching tools that USPTO uses for searching prior art. The searching tools do not have complete access to foreign references and non-patent literature, which are an essential element of prior art. According to the survey report by GAO, they found that some examiners feel that \u201csome relevant prior art may require a fee to access, may not be in a text searchable format, may not be in a database, or may otherwise be difficult to access. In particular, most of the examiners acknowledged that certain general types of prior art are more difficult to find, such as non patent literature and software-related prior art while a few examiners had difficulty in finding foreign-language prior art (6 of the 18 examiners)\u201d<\/p><p>USPTO examiners use two searching tools right now (1) EAST \u2013 stands for Examiners Automated Search Tool.\u00a0 It is a software interface that connects with the USPTO patent database files and (2) WEST stands for Web-based Examiner\u2019s Search Tool.\u00a0 It is an internal USPTO database for use by US patent examiners and patent researchers.<\/p><p>Both the tools are an easy way to access USPTO data but information related with foreign patent literature \u00a0is inadequate as only abstracts are available for some foreign patents. Besides, examiners have to access other web tools in order to find additional foreign patents and that requires additional time.<\/p><p>Another major obstacle that USPTO faces is the amount and relevance of prior art cited by applicants. As per the guidelines of USPTO, examiners have to consider the patent and non-patent literature that are cited by the applicants and review them. Reviewing numerous references is sometimes a major concern, as applicants have no burden to explain the relevancy of the references cited.<\/p><p>As per the survey \u201c88 percent of examiners sometimes, often, or always encounter applications which are irrelevant\u201d and on contrast \u201c87 percent of examiners find that an application with relevant references makes it somewhat or much easier to complete thorough prior art searches in the time allotted\u201d.\u00a0 So its always better for the applicant to cite more relevant references in the Information disclosure statement rather than citing junk.<\/p><p>The recent statistics related to Inter parties review shows that there is an increase in IPR filings, which is an indication that at time of patent examination a through prior art search is required.<\/p><p>USPTO can overcome these issues either by outsourcing the patent searching work like JPO is doing or applicants can outsource their patent searching work to other service providers.<\/p><h2>Reference:<\/h2><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/products\/GAO-16-479\">https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/products\/GAO-16-479<\/a><\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uspto.gov\/dashboards\/patents\/main.dashxml\">https:\/\/www.uspto.gov\/dashboards\/patents\/main.dashxml<\/a><\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uspto.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/documents\/Trial_Statistics_2017-12-31.pdf\">https:\/\/www.uspto.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/documents\/Trial_Statistics_2017-12-31.pdf<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Challenges Faced by USPTO Examiners: an Indication to Outsource Prior Art Search Before Filing USPTO examiners are facing a variety of challenges and pressure while examining patent applications and finding relevant \u201cprior art\u201d. There are various factors affecting the quality of results produced by the USPTO examiners \u2014 the number of applications filed each year, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Challenges Faced by USPTO Examiners: an Indication to Outsource Prior Art Search Before Filing - Legal Advantage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/legaladvantage.net\/2018\/02\/challenges-faced-by-uspto-examiners-an-indication-to-outsource-prior-art-search-before-filing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Challenges Faced by USPTO Examiners: an Indication to Outsource Prior Art Search Before Filing - Legal Advantage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Challenges Faced by USPTO Examiners: an Indication to Outsource Prior Art Search Before Filing USPTO examiners are facing a variety of challenges and pressure while examining patent applications and finding relevant \u201cprior art\u201d. 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