Patent Law Weblog
recent posts
- USPTO Announces That It Has Turned the Corner on Unexamined Application Backlog
- Reasons for the PTAB’s Priority Determination in Broad’s Favor (Perhaps)
- Mexico Publishes Amendments to Intellectual Property Law
- PTAB (Again) Awards Priority of Invention to Broad in Interference No. 106,115
- Argentina Repeals Pharmaceutical Patent Examination Guidelines
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Category: Patent Office Rules & Procedures
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By Donald Zuhn — On Friday, the U.S Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that it was proposing new rules that "will improve an examiner’s ability to focus the examination process for claims that contain more than one independent and distinct invention." According to the USPTO announcement, the proposed rules, which were published…
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By Christopher P. Singer — Last week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that it is seeking participants for a Complex Work Units (CWU) Pilot Program that is scheduled to begin later this year. CWUs include applications containing chemical structure drawings, mathematical formulae, protein crystal data, and table data, which can…
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By Donald Zuhn — Further to our earlier report, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) provided more details on Wednesday regarding the addition of the Japan Patent Office (JPO) to the Priority Document Exchange (PDX) program. In particular, the USPTO announced that for U.S. applications filed on or after July 28,…
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By Robert Dailey — The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO) announced on Monday that the two offices had launched a free service that permits the offices to exchange patent application priority documents. A similar document exchange service already exists between the USPTO and the EPO…
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By Donald Zuhn — The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced today (July 25, 2007) that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) completed its review of the new continuation and claims rules earlier this month. More importantly, the Patent Office also announced that the continuation and claims rules would be published…
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By Donald Zuhn — Last Friday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that it has sent draft obviousness examination guidelines to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. The draft training guidelines are to be used by examiners in determining whether a claimed invention is obvious in view of…
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By Christopher P. Singer — Given the growing popularity of the USPTO’s web-based electronic filing system (EFS-Web) and the Office’s continuing efforts to improve the system, there has never been a better time to start filing documents with the Patent Office electronically. Many of the initial glitches have been resolved, and the electronic…
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By Christopher P. Singer — Increase in EP Search Authority Fees In a notice published late last month, the USPTO announced WIPO’s decision to establish higher search fees for searches performed by the European Patent Office, effective on August 1, 2007. On that date the fee the EPO will charge to act as…
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By Donald Zuhn — As we reported yesterday, last week the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) posted 48 submissions it received in response to a solicitation for comments on international patent law harmonization. Among those submitting comments were the Biotechnology Industry Association (BIO) (here), Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) (here and…
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By Donald Zuhn — As we reported on May 9, 2007, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) asked for comments on ten topics related to international patent law harmonization. On Wednesday, the USPTO posted the 48 submissions it received, including comments from the Biotechnology Industry Association (BIO) (here), Intellectual Property Owners…
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