Over the last several months, Twitter has become a vital component of the Promote the Progress site (follow me at @jmattbuchanan). I use the service to connect with PTP readers and others in the patent community by sharing quick thoughts, links, and other information that doesn’t necessarily warrant a full blog post or case review. In the few short months since I started to use Twitter seriously, I’ve met several interesting patent folks and have participated in numerous fascinating patent-related discussions.

The experience has taught me a lot about engaging a community and developing conversation. While the patent conversation on Twitter is growing (both in quantity and substance), it certainly could use a little help. To that end, I thought it would be great to recruit the Patent and Trademark Office into the mix. The Office is doing some wonderful things with technology and community involvement (the webcast of the recent roundtable discussion on deferred examination is a prime example), but has yet to undertake any social/new media efforts.

Twitter seems like a logical way for the Office to get started in this arena. At a minimum, the Office could use Twitter to post news items and links from its news page. This simple use of the system would provide another avenue to distribute critical information to Office stakeholders. There’s so much more that could be done, though. The Office could use the system to answer questions from the community, to provide live updates from important meetings (e.g., the roundtable, the Public Patent Advisory Committee), etc.

To start the process of recruiting the Office to Twitter, I’ve registered the @uspto account…and will gladly transfer it to someone from the Office that is responsible for IT and/or web technologies and that expresses a genuine interest in developing the account into a serious communications channel for the Office. I have started posting items to the account solely to attract relevant followers, but will only post official items made public by the Office in order to avoid any hesitation by the Office to “adopt” the account later.

When considering whether to use Twitter (either through this account or another), folks from the Office might be interested in reviewing this list of government agencies that are already on Twitter. The list includes NASA (@NASA_Ames_Web, @marsrover, @marsphoenix, and several others), FDA (@foodrecalls), and even President Obama (@BarackObama, although, sadly, he has not tweeted since the inauguration). The Social Media and Web 2.0 in Government collection of resources on webcontent.gov might also be helpful.

The patent community can help the recruiting effort by following @uspto on Twitter and sending a tweet that spreads the word!