On April 30, the USPTO announced a Request for Comments (RFC) seeking public feedback on how AI could affect USPTO evaluations on patentability, including what qualifies as prior art and the assessment of the level of...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has proposed significant changes to patent fee structures for the 2025 fiscal year. These proposed changes mark a pivotal shift in the Office’s financial approach toward...more
On December 8, 2022, the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) announced the launch of the Cancer Moonshot Expedited Examination Pilot Program (Cancer Moonshot Pilot). This program begins on February 1, 2023, and replaces the...more
The USPTO Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) rules include a “safe harbor” that avoids a PTA deduction for “Applicant delay” for Information Disclosure Statements that are accompanied by a certain statement averring that the items...more
In Chudik V. Hirshfeld, the Federal Circuit upheld the USPTO’s determination that a Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) award for “C” delay is not available when an examiner reopens prosecution after an Appeal Brief is filed,...more
On February 4, 2021 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) extended for two years the expansion of the Collaborative Search Pilot Program (CSP), which began in 2015 and is now scheduled to end October 31, 2022. The CSP...more
CHUDIK V. HIRSHFELD - Before Taranto, Bryson, and Hughes. Appeal from the United State District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia - Summary: An examiner’s self-reversal may not qualify as “reversing an...more
It can be difficult to advance prosecution of a U.S. patent application efficiently and effectively after prosecution has been closed and an Advisory Action has been mailed. Various U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)...more
Increased employee mobility, health challenges, and the economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic may result in more inventors than usual being unavailable to sign declarations for patent applications as required by the...more
The United States Patent & Trademark Office (“USPTO”) recently changed its enforcement of 37 C.F.R. 1.114(e)(3) as it relates to an inventor’s oath or declaration, and the change may impact U.S. national stage applications...more
This article discusses aspects of ex parte appeals of patent applications before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). A patent applicant, whose claims have been twice rejected, may appeal an examiner’s...more
On June 16, 2020, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released final rules (the “Rules”) implementing changes to how Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) is calculated in certain circumstances in view of Supernus Pharms.,...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has recently launched two new initiatives to support COVID-19 innovations: 1) a COVID-19 Prioritized Examination Pilot Program, and 2) Patents 4 Partnerships that provides...more
Today, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced a pilot program to accelerate prosecution of patent applications relating to COVID-19 prevention and treatment submitted by small and micro entities. ...more
Through the Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is rolling out programs to enhance overall patent quality. The latest program rolled out was the Post-Prosecution Pilot (P3) Program, which...more
In a case explaining what comprises an “applicant delay” in the context of a patent term adjustment (PTA), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) ruling that the...more
Mayo Foundation v. Iancu reads more like an arithmetic problem than a Federal Circuit decision. The reason is the case involves the Patent Term Adjustment Act (PTA) (see 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)). ...more
A weekly summary of the precedential patent-related opinions issued by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the opinions designated precedential or informative by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board....more
MAYO FOUNDATION FOR MEDICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH v. ANDREI IANCU, UNDER SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE - Before: Newman, Lourie, and Dyk - ...more
Earlier this week, the Federal Circuit declined to further extend the patent term of an antibody patent held by the Mayo Foundation. In Mayo Foundation v. Iancu, the court held that the time spent on a request for continued...more
The importance of patent term, or the period of time during which the exclusive nature of a patent is in effect, cannot be overstated. The patent term for an issued patent, which is currently set at 20 years from the filing...more
Patentees may obtain additional PTA if the USPTO’s calculation of “applicant delay” includes a period of time during which the patentee could have taken “no identifiable effort” to avoid. However, the onus is entirely on the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) erred in calculating a patent term adjustment (PTA) for a patent covering an oral osmotic form of an antihypertensive drug,...more
Your patent may be entitled to a later expiration date if the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) characterized time periods during which you could not engage in reasonable efforts to conclude prosecution as “applicant...more
On January 23, 2019, the Federal Circuit decided Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. vs. Iancu and shed light on Patent Term Adjustment (PTA). PTA was established by the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 and codified at 35...more