The Patent community should celebrate as the U.S. Patent Office has sent a wonderful holiday present to finish out the year. The Patent Office recently announced expansion of the “fast lane” priority examination to patent applicants making a Request for Continued Examination (RCE). By providing for this expansion to an RCE application, the Patent Office removed much of the uncertainty and risk associated with the previously limited “Patent Acceleration.” Prior to this expansion, if a patent applicant chose the “fast lane,” it risked being moved to the “slow lane” if it was unsuccessful within the first year. The new expansion program greatly enhances the options for all patent applicants. This should be heralded as good news for all businesses and should enhance commercialization of technology. This expansion by the Patent Office has occurred in now what is just under two months after publishing a final rule implementing the Track I prioritized examination of patent applications after passage of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act in September of 2011.

Track I accelerated examination was created by the America Invents Act as a “fast lane” for patent prosecution. The goal of this program is to create an avenue for a patent applicant to bring an application from filing to final disposition—hopefully allowance—within one year. Previously, “Patent Acceleration” was available only in certain specific cases, such as an elderly or infirm inventor or where environmental technologies were involved. Under Track I, all applicants willing to pay the substantial fee — $4,800 for an entity not claiming small entity status (or $2,400 for qualifying small entities) may apply for expedited status upon filing of the application.