USPTO implements BPM

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is implementing BEA Systems' AquaLogic business process management (BPM) suite. Merlin International won the contract, valued at $2.1 million, it reported on Business Wire.

The new infrastructure promises to streamline and accelerate the patent submission, review and approval process. Last year, the USPTO received about 400 000 patent applications, each requiring up to 18 months to process.

The legacy system relied heavily on manual processes and a significant amount of duplication between workflows. The agency realised it could cut the processing time to six months if it consolidated the functionality currently spread across 150 disparate systems.

US-based BPM and optimisation solutions provider Global 360 says that it has teamed up with Phoenix Technology Group, a provider of process, content and records management solutions, Earth Times reports.

The partnership aims to tie up Phoenix's expertise in the finance sector and Global 360's BPM technology to offer customers the ability to make business-critical processes, including business process outsourcing, pension administration and claims management, more competitive and compliant.

"Global 360's focus on business process optimisation will offer our current and future customers an exceptional BPM product," said Cormac McCarthy, MD at Phoenix Technology Group.

BPM and business intelligence (BI) software evolved separately, designed for entirely different ends, reports Intelligent Enterprise.

However, there is an argument that they should not be used for different purposes. More and more, users and vendors of BPM and BI software are figuring out there's a lot to be gained by bringing the two technologies together.

"I call it our data supply chain," says Guido Sacchi, CIO at CompuCredit, which has been using BPM and BI for about a year.