Federal Reports

To accomplish our objective, we applied the agreed-upon procedures described in Attachment A to the payroll periods ended September 6, 2024, and March 7, 2025, coinciding with the Supplemental Semiannual Headcount Report for September 2024 and March 2025 and to the enrollment information submitted. We randomly selected another payroll period, ending February 7, 2025, for additional testing. We confirmed Retirement and Insurance Transfer System data by verifying payroll information to source documents. We randomly selected 45 employees and compared employee withholdings and employer contributions to documentation in the employees’ Official Personnel Files. For all employees, we independently calculated employee withholdings, Postal Service contributions, and enrollment information for health benefits, life insurance, and retirement. We compared the results to actual employee withholdings and Postal Service contributions submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to determine whether differences existed.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issues patents based on its examination of applications for compliance with Patent Act statutes and relevant case law.

USPTO’s Office of Patent and Quality Assurance (OPQA) performs independent quality reviews of examiner office actions to ensure decisions to either allow or reject a patent claim comply with all legal requirements. OPQA’s reviews are used to generate and report USPTO’s statutory compliance measures for quality. Our objective was to determine the effectiveness of quality reviews of continuing patent applications completed in FYs 2021–2023.

We found that USPTO needs to strengthen its quality review program to be more effective at improving patent quality. Specifically, (1) USPTO did not consistently use the results of OPQA reviews to improve the quality of continuing application examination, (2) OPQA did not ensure quality assessments were performed on compliant quality review findings, and (3) USPTO did not report certain patent examination quality errors in its annual performance reports.

These issues resulted from incomplete and insufficient policies and procedures. We made six recommendations to help USPTO strengthen its quality review program and promote high-quality patent examination and improved patent quality.