The plan forces a trade-off.

That may sound familiar to you, and that's because improving patent quality has always been at the core of the PTO's mission. But, for too long, due to uncertain budgetary conditions and limited resources, the PTO has had to make do with less. Despite our best intentions, we've had to accept trade-offs between quality and application backlog and pendency, forcing us to cut programs and shift resources to maximize output without sacrificing quality.