Acronyms
ABA
American Bar Association
AIPA
American Inventors’ Protection Act of 1999
AIPLA
American Intellectual Property Law Association
APJ
Administrative Patent Judge
BPAI
Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences
CCPA
Court of Customs and Patent Appeals
CMS
Carnegie Mellon Survey
DMCA
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
EPC
European Patent Convention
EPO
European Patent Office
EST
Expressed Tag Sequence
FOA
First Office Action
FTC
Federal Trade Commission
FY
Fiscal Year
GAO
Government Accounting Office
GATT
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
IG
Inspector General
IP
Intellectual Property
IPO
Intellectual Property Owners Association
IPR
Intellectual Property Right
IT
Information Technology
JPO
Japanese Patent Office
MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MOU
Memorandum of Understanding
MPEG
Moving Picture Experts Group
MPEP
Manual of Patent Examining Procedure
NAFTA
North American Free Trade Agreement
NIH
National Institutes of Health
NRC
National Research Council
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
PCT
Patent Cooperation Treaty
R&D
Research and Development
RCE
Request for Continued Examination
STEP
Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy
TRIPS
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement
USPTO
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
WARF
Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
WIPO
World Intellectual Property Organization
WTO
World Trade Organization