Earlier this month, we reported that the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would be co-sponsoring the 18th Annual Conference on U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Law and Practice (PTO Day) on December 3, 2007 in Washington, D.C.  At the time, we stated that it would be interesting to see whether some of the scheduled topics will change in view of the recent decision in the consolidated cases of Tafas v. Dudas and SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Dudas.

Today, the IPO announced that because of the "holdup" of the new continuation and claims rules, previously scheduled topics on the new rules were being replaced with other topics.  In the patent portion of the revised program, the presentation entitled "Understanding the New Patent Rules on Continuations and Claims" will be replaced with a presentation entitled "Implications of Patent Reform Legislation for USPTO Practice," and the patent-related breakout session concerning "Questions and Answers on the Continuations and Claims Rules" will be replaced with a breakout session regarding "Selected Patent Practice Tips, Initiatives, and Guidelines."