Federal Reports

Ajmal Atherton of Brooklyn, New York, pleaded guilty on August 30, 2025, in Brooklyn District Court to one count of grand larceny in the third degree and one count of offering a false instrument for filing in the second degree. Our investigation found that Atherton fraudulently obtained New York State unemployment benefits. Atherton’s conduct was identified during an investigation into an alleged financial fraud involving a former Amtrak electrician.

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.