On July 30, 2015, Drew Hirshfeld was sworn in as the new Commissioner for Patents. Prior to taking the helm of patent operations as Commissioner for Patents, Hirshfeld served as Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy. Even before assuming the position of Deputy Commissioner, Hirshfeld was no stranger to senior management, having served two years as the USPTO Chief of Staff for David Kappos. He also served as a Supervisory Patent Examiner as well as a Group Director of Technology Center 2100, overseeing Computer Networking and Database workgroups.

I spoke with Hirshfeld on the record on August 10, 2015. What follows are some of the highlights of the interview. For more please see the complete transcript of our interview.

Hirshfeld on whether “patent quality” means issuing fewer patents —

We’ve always focused on quality as far as I’ve been here. What we have been asked to do in recent years is ask how can we take a more “out of the box” approach to quality, right? Is there anything that we could be doing with the goal of continuous improvement? And so to me that’s an absolutely wonderful position to be in for anybody asking how can you do your job better. And so I don’t look at quality as saying we want to issue more patents or less patents, we want to do a better job, a good job in the process, as we’re moving forward. Things like clarity of the record. That does not mean we’re going to issue more or less, it means that we’re going to take extra steps to make sure we’re on the same page as the applicant. Or make sure we’re creating a good record so that a third party down the road can evaluate the application history, the prosecution history and tell exactly what took place. Certainly there is not a sentiment to try to reject more or less. Our goal is to do what the courts are asking us to do, but we want to make sure that we’re thinking about all the ways we can do that in the most effective, efficient and clear way.

Hirshfeld on whether he will be introducing new initiatives —

It’s easy to say when you have a quality initiative where you haven’t figured out the exact path. I do have thoughts on how we should proceed under the quality initiative that fit under the big umbrella of what we’ve been trying to achieve. But absolutely, I think we need to increase examiner training, examiner training on a lot of the statutes, you know 112, 103, etc. We’ve been doing that, however, over recent years, and to me we should continue to do that. But there’s nothing really that stands out as saying this is Drew Hirshfeld’s agenda that’s very different from what has taken place. I’m really trying to stick to the path that we’ve already gone down, the path Michelle Lee has put us on. I think it’s a wonderful path, and it’s quite frankly one of the reasons I really wanted to be commissioner at this point. So really I’m trying to stick to that path.

Hirshfeld on how the industry should be using the hypothetical examples published by the Office relating to patent eligible subject matter —

I think there are really two ways people should be using the examples that we put out. The first is to comment on them. We have a comment period – let us know what you think of them. I’ve gotten very good verbal feedback from people about the latest set of examples and even the previous set of examples, but people should be telling us this is good or bad, this is what we like, this is what we don’t like, maybe hear some other examples, right? I can tell you one of the examples that we used was a hypothetical that somebody had sent in to us from the previous comment period, suggesting we use it. We thought it was a very good example. The other way that they could be used is citing to an examiner, right? If you have a situation in a particular case where you feel your particular situation is similar to the situation of one of those examples, by all means you could be pointing those out and highlighting to the examiner why you have a similar situation and why your claim should be treated the same way.

Hirshfeld on why the allowance rate is higher with respect to Track One prioritized applications —

 I think first of all we are looking at those results and that’s hard to determine from Track One what exactly is leading to its success. I do think they are a self-selected case from the public as you just identified, where people are paying more money, they’re picking those cases that they really feel are most important for quick prosecution, so there’s a motivation on the applicant’s part, too. I would also say, from the Office’s standpoint, cases can be moved most expeditiously when there are interviews and discussions, and it gets right back to getting on the same page between the examiner and the applicant – puts us all in a better position.

Hirshfeld also took time to answer some of the “fun” questions I’ve asked over the years. We learned that he is a New York Knicks basketball fan, he enjoys camping with his family, and his favorite movie is Field of Dreams. For more of those “get to know you” questions, see Up Close and Personal with Drew Hirshfeld.

Tags: Commissioner Drew Hirshfeld, Commissioner for Patents, Drew Hirshfeld, interview, patent, Patent Office, patent quality, patents, USPTO

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