Report on FY2018 Annual User Satisfaction Survey on Patent Examination Quality

August 2019
Quality Management Office
Administrative Affairs Division

To achieve the utmost quality in the world in terms of patent examination, it is essential that continuous efforts be made for sustaining and enhancing the quality of patent examination, based on an accurate understanding of the needs and expectations of users such as applicants and third parties. Therefore, the JPO has conducted a user satisfaction survey on patent examination annually since the first Survey in FY2012 was conducted.

As in the last six surveys, this survey also had a high response rate of around 90% from users. 62.2% of the respondents had “positive responses” (the total of responses of “Satisfied” and “Somewhat Satisfied” on a 5-point scale) to our patent examination on national applications. 57.8% of the respondents had “positive responses” to our International Search and International Preliminary Examination. These results show that the measures and initiatives that the JPO is conducting to improve examination quality are definitely raising user satisfaction.

Meanwhile, some practices in patent examination are still sought to be improved in terms of quality. 5.6% of the respondents are unsatisfied (the total of responses of “Somewhat Unsatisfied” and “Unsatisfied” on a 5-point scale) with our patent examination on national applications. 3.8% of the respondents are unsatisfied with our International Search and International Preliminary Examination on PCT applications. Carefully listening to the opinions of users is essential to continuously formulate measures for achieving quality assurance in patent examination.

Taking consideration of the results that were obtained from this survey, the JPO will make continuous efforts for sustaining and enhancing the quality of patent examination.

The JPO is sincerely grateful to all the users who took this survey.

• Report on FY2018 Annual User Satisfaction Survey on Patent Examination Quality (PDF:4.6MB)

[Last updated 26 August 2019]

Contact

Quality Management Office Administrative Affairs Division Patent and Design Examination Department Japan Patent Office TEL：+81-3-3581-1101 (ex. 3121) E-mail:PA2A30@jpo.go.jp