BACKGROUND

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) plays a crucial role in granting and protecting intellectual property rights related to trademarks, supporting the competitive advantages of American firms in design, quality, and manufacturing. As of 2024, there are over 82.5 million active trademark registrations globally, and the USPTO has issued 453,454 trademark registrations this year alone—almost triple the number granted in 2000. To meet the demands of an increasing workload, USPTO has actively modernized its systems in partnership with REI Systems, improving efficiency to ensure applicants and attorneys receive timely, reliable services. As part of this mission, USPTO, supported by REI’s agile teams, shifted from a project-focused approach to a product-oriented structure that emphasizes user-centered solutions. This evolution underscores USPTO’s commitment to fostering innovation, protecting intellectual property, and supporting economic growth.

THE CHALLENGE – AGING SYSTEMS

For decades, USPTO relied on the Trademark Reporting and Monitoring (TRAM) system, a COBOL-based, mainframe-hosted application that managed trademark application data. TRAM integrated electronic and paper applications, handling prosecution history, ownership, and correspondence. Despite its utility, TRAM’s outdated technology and reliance on more than twenty independent legacy systems led to redundant tasks, increased risk of data loss, and unnecessary complexity. These inefficiencies delayed application processing, slowed customer service, and raised operational costs.

To address these issues, USPTO needed to modernize its core system to increase efficiency, improve data accuracy, and boost customer satisfaction. In particular, moving from a monolithic, mainframe-hosted system to a modern, scalable, and flexible solution was critical to supporting the volume and complexity of trademark applications, which now include international filings.

REI’s APPROACH

In 2021, after several vendors had attempted but failed to modernize USPTO’s systems, REI was selected to overhaul USPTO’s Trademark Exam application suite. REI took on the task of transforming this suite from a non-modular structure to a microservices-based architecture. REI enhanced search capabilities and user interface reliability by transitioning outdated frameworks to modern technologies like Angular for the front end and Elastic Search for the back end hosted on AWS.

REI implemented automated CI/CD pipelines and adopted a “Test First” approach to ensure the consistent release of high-quality features. Deployments included critical functionalities, such as the Trademark Modernization Act (TMA) and the modernization of the Post-Registration, Letter of Protest (LOP) process within TM Exam, which facilitated the phase-out of the TRAM system. This streamlined approach ensured minimal disruptions and an efficient deployment process during essential updates.

Using a Blue/Green deployment strategy, REI conducted 24 deployments over ten months, achieving zero system downtime and significantly improving user uptime. A significant milestone was the retirement of 20 legacy systems and 420 TRAM transactions, replaced by 129 newly implemented services to support the new Trademark Records Management (TRM) system. This modernization effort culminated in May 2024 with the retirement of TRAM and the launch of TRM, a cloud-enabled, Oracle-based platform that enhances system reliability and scalability. Alongside TRM, the TM -Exam (Trademark Examination) system improves the user experience by providing more reliable access to trademark data and streamlining the trademark examination process.

To further enhance service continuity, REI provided seamless Operations and Maintenance (O&M) support for the TM Exam system, extending beyond Tier 3 duties to handle a broad range of incidents. By implementing proactive batch scripts to identify incident patterns, REI reduced response times and minimized system disruptions, often resolving issues before they impacted users.

CUSTOMER IMPACT

REI’s modernization efforts delivered substantial benefits for USPTO, resulting in improved system performance, increased efficiency, and enhanced user satisfaction. These improvements directly support USPTO’s mission by enabling faster and more reliable trademark processing, helping to safeguard intellectual property more effectively. Key outcomes include:

• Office actions—official communications from trademark examiners requiring applicant responses—increased by 56.2% in the first month following the modernized TM Exam system launch, reaching a 174.9% increase by December 2021.
• Implementing a Blue/Green deployment strategy minimized system downtime, achieving 99.8% uptime. Previously, each release required about four hours of downtime, totaling eight hours per month.
• A tiered support system introduced by REI reduced incident resolution times from 24 hours to
  4 hours for critical issues. The help ticket backlog decreased by 86%, from up to 16 weeks to less than 2 weeks.
• Over 1,200 attorneys transitioned smoothly to the TM-Exam system, benefiting from improved interface navigation and access to critical trademark data.
• Moving from the mainframe-hosted TRAM system to a cloud-based platform significantly reduced infrastructure and support costs, as the legacy mainframe system was deprecated.

The modernized system also offers a more intuitive interface, making it easier for applicants and representatives to navigate the application process. Enhanced features include improved application status tracking and simplified communication channels with examiners, supporting USPTO’s mission to manage growing application volumes and protect intellectual property effectively.

CONCLUSION

With the successful retirement of TRAM and the launch of the TRM and modernized TM Exam systems, REI has enabled USPTO to better protect American businesses’ intellectual property. The TRM system, now operating on a cloud-enabled platform, aligns with USPTO’s evolving business needs by enhancing fault isolation, supporting continuous integration and deployment, and strengthening overall system security, scalability, and adaptability to meet USPTO’s mission.

REI’s comprehensive approach, combining innovative technology, agile methodologies, and user-centered design, has paved the way for sustainable improvements at USPTO. While the journey continues, the successes achieved to date underscore REI’s role in delivering transformative, user-focused technology solutions that advance USPTO’s goals and support intellectual property protection.

ABOUT REI SYSTEMS

REI Systems delivers reliable and innovative technology solutions that empower federal, state, local, and nonprofit organizations to achieve their missions. For over 35 years, we’ve helped our customers solve complex challenges, make data-driven decisions, streamline processes, and improve citizen services. As a 100% employee-owned company, we are all directly invested in delivering excellence. With a fierce commitment to mission impact, we ensure measurable outcomes that align with our customers’ strategic goals. Learn more at REIsystems.com.