Strengthening Patent Quality: GAO Urges USPTO to Rebalance Efficiency and Rigor
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a critical audit of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), highlighting persistent shortcomings in patent examination processes and quality assurance despite years of reform efforts. In its April 2025 report to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, the GAO finds that the USPTO continues to prioritize output volume over patent quality, a trend that examiners say undermines the integrity of granted patents and pressures them to sacrifice thoroughness for speed.
The report is based on focus groups with nearly 50 patent examiners, reviews of USPTO data, and assessments of internal initiatives, including pilot programs and performance evaluations. One of the most significant findings is that many examiners feel compelled to meet quantitative goals at the expense of careful prior art searches and legal analysis. This is especially concerning given the increasing complexity of applications and expanding bodies of prior art and case law. Despite previous GAO recommendations, many examiners continue to report insufficient time to complete thorough examinations—an issue exacerbated by applicant behaviors such as filing vague or overly broad claims and submitting excessive disclosure documents.
The GAO also criticized the USPTO's handling of pilot programs intended to improve patent quality. Of the 14 programs reviewed, seven failed to evaluate outcomes, and most lacked design elements aligned with best practices in evidence-based policymaking. The agency's failure to systematically assess these pilots diminishes opportunities for scalable reform. Moreover, supervisory reviews of examiner work often lack methodological rigor, including the use of random sampling and error accountability, potentially overstating the quality of issued patents.
In terms of internal oversight, the GAO recognized recent efforts like the formation of the Patent Internal Control Board and the Research and Development Unit. However, these bodies have not yet assumed responsibility for evaluating ongoing initiatives or ensuring that changes in policy are backed by measurable performance indicators. The agency’s continued absence of a unified patent quality compliance goal—one that addresses all statutory requirements simultaneously—was another concern raised in the report. Current compliance statistics may paint an overly optimistic picture by assessing requirements in isolation rather than in aggregate.
Further compounding these issues is the lack of metrics that assess the broader economic or scientific value of patents. The USPTO’s failure to communicate meaningful indicators to stakeholders limits its ability to convey how patents contribute to innovation across sectors. The GAO recommends eight concrete actions, including reevaluating examiner performance metrics, formalizing pilot program governance, adopting aggregate patent quality goals, and integrating alternative measures of patent value.
This report—GAO-25-107218—calls for a strategic recalibration of the USPTO’s practices, emphasizing that issuing patents at scale should not come at the cost of quality, enforceability, or innovation integrity. By implementing GAO’s recommendations, the USPTO can strengthen trust in the patent system and foster a more balanced approach between speed and substantive review.
This blog post is a summary of publicly available government information from GAO-25-107218, authored by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It is not guaranteed to be accurate and does not constitute legal advice.
