Starting May 13, 2025, the USPTO has begun accelerating the issuance of patents after the issue fee has been paid. Specifically, the duration between the Issue Notification and the Issue Date will be reduced to approximately...more
Design patents in the U.S. typically include two types of shading. The first and most common type of shading used in U.S. design patents is opaque shading, which illustrates a non-transparent or non-translucent surface of an...more
The Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (“MPEP”) is the examination manual used internally at the United States Patent & Trademark Office (“USPTO”) to guide examiners in the process of examining patent applications. In...more
As outlined in our previous post, on June 1, 2021 the Fourth Amendment to the Chinese Patent Law came into effect, allowing partial claiming in design patent applications. Until this past May, examination of most Chinese...more
This article supplements our previous post with updated 2021 data.
U.S. design patents continue to grow in popularity. Although 2021 saw a slight downtick in the number of issued design patents compared to the previous...more
On October 17, 2020, the Chinese Legislature passed the Fourth Amendment to the Chinese Patent Law, which will come into effect on June 1, 2021. As discussed in our previous post, the Fourth Amendment included several updates...more
5/25/2021
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