USPTO Implements New System for Ordering Certified Copies of Documents

In a notice posted on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website last month, the Office announced that it was implementing the Certified Copy Center (CCC) Storefront, a new web system for ordering certified copies of patent and trademark documents.  The new system will replace the current Order Entry Management System (OEMS), which can be accessed through the Private Patent Information and Retrieval (PAIR) system.  The new system will be accessed via a user's MyUSPTO page.  According to the Office's notice, a beta version of the CCC Storefront was issued last month, and the full production release of the CCC Storefront is scheduled for later this month.

USPTO Announces Expansion of Phase 1 of Access to Relevant Prior Art Initiative

In a Patent Alert e-mail distributed earlier this year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced an update to Phase 1 of the Office's Access to Relevant Prior Art Initiative, which began on November 1, 2018.  The Access to Relevant Prior Art (RPA) Initiative is an effort by the Office to increase patent examination quality and efficiency through the development of an automated tool for USPTO examiners, which will import relevant prior art and other pertinent information from sources such as related U.S. applications, counterpart foreign applications, and International (PCT) applications into pending U.S. patent applications as early as possible in prosecution.  The Office envisions the RPA initiative as a way "to potentially reduce the burden on applicants with complying with the duty of disclosure."

In Phase 1 of the RPA initiative, information in the form of citations on PTO/SB/08 and PTO-892 forms from the immediate parent application will be imported into the continuing application for consideration by the Examiner.  The Office noted last year that Phase 1 would be limited to select art units -- in particular, Art Unit 2131 in Technology Center 2100, with a wider release to Art Units 1616, 1731, 2431, 2675, 2879, 2922, 3635, and 3753 this year.  The Office has now expanded the RPA Initiative to include those additional art units.  Applicants will receive a Notice of Imported Citations from the Office informing the applicant that an application has been included in the Initiative and listing the citations from the immediate parent application that have been imported into the application.

Additional information regarding the RPA initiative can be found at the Office's Access to Relevant Prior Art Initiative webpage.

ATCC Changes Deposit Requirements for Seeds

In a notice posted on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website on March 1, the Office informed stakeholders of a change being implemented by the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) with regard to the deposit of plant seeds.  The Office notes that in order to ensure compliance with 35 U.S.C. § 112 for utility plant inventions (as opposed to patent applications submitted under the Plant Patent Act, 35 U.S.C. §§ 161-164), the deposit of inventive seeds may supplement the disclosure in the specification to provide an adequate written description of the invention and to enable those skilled in the art to make and use the claimed invention.  The Office also notes that a deposit must comply with the biological deposit rules (37 C.F.R. §§ 1.801-1.809) to be relied upon to meet the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112.  For plant seeds, biological deposit rules require that deposits be made with one of seven Budapest Treaty International Depositary Authorities (IDAs), of which the ATCC is one of the largest.

For seed deposits, the ATCC previously required depositors to deposit 2,500 seeds (consisting of 25 packages of 100 seeds each).  Because an analysis of past deposits indicated that at most, only four seed packages had been requested for any one deposit, the ATCC has reduced the number of seeds that must be deposited to 625 (i.e., 25 packages of 25 seeds), with the change taking effect on January 1, 2019.

As a result of the ATCC change, the Office has indicated that MPEP § 2403.02 will be revised to indicate that as long as the number of seeds deposited complies with the requirements of the IDA where the deposit is made, the USPTO will consider such submission as satisfying the rules under 37 C.F.R. §§ 1.801-1.809.