Patent Stakeholder Training on Examination Practice and Procedure

The Patent Office has begun offering a Stakeholder Training on Examination Practice and Procedure (“STEPP”), part of its Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative in which it improves quality and communication between the Patent Office and the public. The Patent Office states: “Training delivered through STEPP is designed to provide external stakeholders with a better understanding of how and why an examiner makes decisions while examining a patent application. In person courses are led by USPTO trainers and based on material developed for training employees of the USPTO.”

The STEPP program is intended to increase the transparency by educating the public about examination practice and procedure, provide perspective to attorneys and applicants about how an examiner approaches an application and an office action, and aiding patent attorneys in compact prosecution by showing them how an application is examined under the MPEP.

This program is a good program. I recently attended a presentation by the Silicon Valley Patent Office which serves the west coast on Patent Office operations. It was interesting and helpful, but some of the audience tried to use it as a personal gripe fest about examiners they had faced. That same waste is a concern I have with the program. More importantly, however, one issue with this program is that apparently is only available if you are at the Patent Office, or perhaps one of the regional offices. Expansion to WebEx or other online training should be a goal.