PreNotification Letter

Dear :
In an effort to improve the way we measure the quality of the patent examination process, the
United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is conducting a Customer Panel Quality
Survey. In about a week, you will receive this survey in the mail. Please take some time from
your busy schedule to complete it. Your feedback is very important to us and will be used in our
planning efforts.
The purpose of this survey is to obtain feedback on the quality of USPTO patent examination
procedures from the customers’ point of view, and to use that feedback to target areas for
examiner training and other activities to improve the patent examination process.
You were randomly selected to complete this survey from our database of customers. Because
this is a panel survey, you may be selected one additional time to complete the survey again
within the next year. The reason we ask some of our customers to complete the survey more than
once is so we can measure whether the quality of patent examinations is changing.
Although this is a paper survey, you also have the option of responding to the survey over the
Internet. To take the Internet survey, enter the URL www.***.org/***. Once you are at the
website, enter the username “***” and the password “***” to begin the survey. The password is
case sensitive. You will be asked for your survey ID number, which is the 5-digit number printed
on the bottom right-hand corner of this letter. Then, follow the instructions on the screen. If you
complete the Internet survey, please discard your copy of the paper survey when it arrives.
Be assured that all of your responses, either collected over the Internet or by mail, will remain
confidential and no identifying information about you will be linked to the results. Because you
are a valued customer to the USPTO, your feedback is very important to us and will be used to
guide our future action planning.
If you have any questions about this study, please call Terita Jackson at Westat at 1-800-XXXXXXX. If you would like to speak to someone at USPTO, please call Martin Rater at 571-2725966.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Sincerely,

John Doll
Commissioner for Patents

<5 digit Survey ID number>