USPTO Patent Dashboard Tracking Tool

The United States Parent and Trademark Office (USPTO) just launched the beta version of a USPTO Data Visualization Center in a web page that looks like a bunch of speedometers on dashboard. This patent dashboard tool will provide statistical measures to track patent pendency.

The new dashboard, which will be updated monthly, will also be used internally by the USPTO to analyze and improve our examination process and to track the effectiveness of our improvement efforts. We intend to further refine the dashboard and welcome your input about ways we can improve it. A dedicated mailbox has been set up for your comments and we intend to monitor your feedback carefully.

The patents dashboard provides more refined pendency information than was previously available, as well as other critical performance indicators such as:

• the number of applications in the backlog;
• production;
• actions per disposal;
• and USPTO staffing levels.

The dashboard introduces six new measures of pendency designed to give a better overall picture of the contributions of different parts of the examination process to application pendency.