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USPTO Petition Process: Who Should Pay for the Burden of Inordinate Delays and “Mistakes”?
All applicants deserve to have their petitions treated in a consistent manner…. Inconsistency within the USPTO’s petition practice should not be used as a poor excuse for further inconsistency.
Julie Burke
Michael Spector
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USPTO After Final Petition Statistics – Are Things as Bad as They Appear? (Part VI)
The USPTO apparently gives each Technology Center the discretion as to when and how they choose to process petitions, and even who has authority to decide such petitions. This results in significant TC-to-TC variation in standards of review, petition pendency, and grant rates, making it difficult for practitioners to know what to expect when filing similar types of petitions in various TCs.
Julie Burke
Michael Spector
The Good, the Bad and the Missing: Findings from a Review of the Data on Granted Retroactive Foreign Filing Licenses
The process to obtain a RFFL, while often lengthy and arduous, is successfully accomplished over 70% of the time…. Yet, it should be concerning that 84% of the granted decisions for a RFFL are not found in Public PAIR’s Image File Wrapper.”
Michael Spector
Julie Burke
Successful After Final Petitions Can Help Advance Prosecution (Part V)
Petitioning to overcome an improper final Office action is, contrary to conventional wisdom, not necessarily a futile exercise. Applicants can and do obtain granted petitions in far faster time than indicated in the USPTO Data Visualization Center.
Julie Burke
Michael Spector
Petitions Filed After Final Dismissed as Moot: USPTO Runs Down the Clock (Part IV)
Late entry of an after final petition, either by design or happenstance, strongly correlates with the petition being further delayed and ultimately being dismissed as moot.
Julie Burke
Michael Spector
Late-Filed Petitions Dismissed as Untimely: No Apparent Rhyme nor Reason (Part III)
During the course of our review, we identified three recent instances in which the practice of dismissing petitions as untimely was expanded to dismiss timely-filed petitions.
Julie Burke
Michael Spector
Newly created First Action Final Rejection policy adds unnecessary complications to patent prosecution
Based on an obscure and essentially uncirculated 2017 final agency decision (“FA Decision”), the USPTO recently revised Manual of Patent Examination Procedure (“MPEP”) § 706.07(b) to retroactively impose a first action final rejection (“FAFR”) legal standard that creates uncertainty and significantly reduces patent applicant’s options.
Julie Burke
William Smith
Michael Spector
A USPTO Examination Policy Change You May Have Missed
With little fanfare, the latest Manual of Patent Examining Procedure revision in June inserted a subtle, but potentially significant, change to the first-action final rejection practice that may make the patent examination process more costly for patent applicants, and more profitable for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Julie Burke
David Gass
Update on TC1600 and TC1700’s Treatment of Markush Claims
The USPTO provides examiners with the option of rejecting Markush claims for containing improper Markush groupings and/or restricting examination of Markush claims by a requirement for an election of species. The rejection of a Markush claim is appealable to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) in accordance with 35 U.S.C. § 134 and 37 C.F.R. § 41.31(a)(1).
Julie Burke
Michael Spector
Introducing Petition.ai
Petition.ai Launches the First Comprehensive Searchable Database of USPTO Patent Petition Documents. Significantly increase the likelihood of getting a petition granted on the first attempt while saving time and effort, relieving stress and reducing uncertainty.
Michael Spector
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