The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says it has reduced the costs to operate and maintain legacy information technology systems as a result of its adoption of agile software development, Federal News Radio reported Friday.
Jason Miller writes that USPTOÂ spends only 40 percent of its budget on legacy systems while spending 60 percent on development, modernization and enhancement projects.
USPTO Chief Information Officer John Owens told the station that the agency has been working with customers and leveraging a user-centered design and development/operations approach to help expedite the delivery of new capabilities and eliminate technical debt.
“I believe that [Dev/Ops] is a standard that will continue to push the excellence inside the federal government, to embrace the best technology industry has to offer and to drive government efficiency forward as we replace older legacy systems that are stringed throughout the federal government with real modern equivalents,” he said.
Miller reports that USPTO has prepared to deploy its patent end-to-end system and the trademark next-generation program with an automated “one-button” process to build and test systems.
“Now we have rapid development, rapid test, automatic deployment and we can focus on building better products for our customers to meet their needs,” Owens said.
