The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) opened a new office yesterday in the heart of the nation’s most celebrated hub of technological innovation: California’s Silicon Valley.
“This new office allows the USPTO to create new high-skilled jobs, while also working closely with the West Coast Region’s vast array of innovative industries to expedite the patent examination process, advance cutting-edge ideas to the marketplace, empower entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, and identify their unique needs as they navigate the world’s strongest intellectual property system,” said Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee, who spoke at the event.
Located in the San Jose City Hall, the Silicon Valley USPTO, West Coast Region office will house more than 100 patent examiners, Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) judges, and outreach officials—many of them hired locally and from throughout the region—working under the leadership of regional office director John Cabeca, a 25-year veteran of the USPTO.
This is the third regional office the USPTO has opened since passage of the historic Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, signed into law by President Obama on Sept. 16, 2011. The first opened in July 2012, in Detroit, and the second in June 2014 in Denver. A fourth will follow next month in Dallas, providing a permanent USPTO presence in each of the nation’s four continental time zones.
Through the ‘Open for Business Agenda,’ the Commerce Department is actively investing in communities across the country to build their capacity to spur innovation. It strongly supports innovative startups and enterprises throughout their lifecycle because those companies produce economic growth, support good-paying jobs, and benefit America’s middle class. The Department also believes this new USPTO office will help the West Coast region’s inventors and entrepreneurs speed their innovative products and technologies to the marketplace.
The USPTO hopes that retaining and hiring more talented examiners locally will further improve the overall quality and transparency of agency operations while continuing to reduce patent pendency on a national scale.
