Category: Patent Office Rules & Procedures

    By Christopher P. Singer — Last week the United States and European Patent Offices announced that the agencies will begin to exchange priority documents in an electronic format.  This program will impact applicants that have filed an application with the U.S. or European Patent Offices (a "priority document"), and subsequently wish to file…

    By Christopher P. Singer — With the release of EFS-Web 1.1 on October 14, 2006, the USPTO has streamlined the filing of sequence listings for practitioners and patentees.  The prior version of EFS-Web was limited because it allowed submission of files in .pdf format only and was not enabled to handle sequence listings,…

    By Kevin Noonan — The Patent and Trademark Office has proposed sweeping changes in "continuation’ practice (see Part 1) as well as how claims are examined, which were the subject of a "townhall" meeting held in Chicago on February 1st with Patent Commissioner John Doll and General Counsel James Toupin. At present, an…

    By Kevin Noonan — The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has proposed sweeping changes in patent prosecution practice rules that were discussed at a "townhall" meeting held in Chicago on February 1st with Patent Commissioner John Doll and General Counsel James Toupin. The rules would limit so-called "continuation" practice to one per application,…