On January 12, 2009, Jon Dudas will complete four years as Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Prior to that, Director Dudas spent two years as the USPTO's Deputy Director. Under his directorship, the PTO has focused on "Quality" and reducing pendency of applications. Successes including (1) hiring many more examiners and (2) boosting the PTO budget to $ 2 billion. The electronic filing system for patents has turned out to be an excellent system that works well and is reliable.
In an internal USPTO e-mail, Director Dudas has announced that he will leave the USPTO in mid-January.
