Wolf Greenfield Attorneys Preview What’s Ahead in 2024
Under the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) modernization efforts, the time between paying the issue fee and issuance of the patent is being reduced. Faster patent issuance gives patent applicants less time...more
On April 15, 2025, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) informed the public that, effective May 13, 2025, the USPTO will be accelerating the process for issuing patents. Currently, the time between Issue...more
What You Need to Know: • Instead of filing multiple applications claiming different aspects of an invention but not sharing a single priority chain, patentees should strive to file highly comprehensive applications that...more
Before the USPTO was subject to a hiring freeze, it assumed it would onboard 400 new examiners between fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2026, and still predicted an increase in the backlog of unexamined patent applications....more
This Article analyzes over 89,000 patents litigated over a twenty-year period to determine how the number of office actions to allowance during prosecution impacts rates of invalidity during subsequent litigation. Many...more
Under U.S. law, most patents are limited to a term of 20 years from the earliest nonprovisional filing date. However, Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) and Patent Term Extension (PTE) can be used in certain circumstances to gain...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") raised patent fees and introduced new surcharges....more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced changes to patent fees, which will take effect on Jan 19, 2025. Most current fees are subject to a 7.5% across-the-board increase while other fees are...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a “final rule” to fee adjustments for patent applications and appeals, effective January 19, 2025. These changes represent some of the most significant changes to the...more
The USPTO has published its final rule setting patent fees that will take effect January 19, 2025. The final rule steps back from some of the new fee structures proposed in April 2024, but still could have a significant...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced today the finalized fee increases taking effect on January 19, 2025. While applicants can still expect significant increases in certain areas, some proposed fee...more
The Supreme Court denies Cellect LLC's petition for certiorari to consider whether patent term adjustment ("PTA") should be included in patent term for obviousness-type double patenting ("ODP") purposes....more
In December 2021, patent practice was upended by four related United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions holding that patents subject to statutory Patent Term Adjustment...more
Under the patent laws, the term of a patent may be increased for delays by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) during the application process. See 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1). Conversely, the USPTO can reduce a patent term...more
According to statute, if prosecution of a patent application is delayed due to the fault of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”), additional term is added to the life of the patent when it issues. This is...more
The duty to disclose required by 37 CFR § 1.56 is a constant weight on patent practitioners and applicants to cite references via an Information Disclosure Statement (IDS). The indiscriminate or reflexive filing of an IDS...more
If the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is going to implement fee changes in January 2025, we should see a Federal Register Notice detailing the proposed fees soon. The USPTO started this round of fee-setting in April...more
On Friday, January 19, 2024, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an Order refusing to rehear In re Cellect, LLC en banc. This likely means that the holding in In re Cellect will represent the law regarding...more
2024 is upon us and it’s going to be another busy year for intellectual property law. In this episode of IP Talk with Wolf Greenfield, you’ll hear Wolf Greenfield attorneys from a variety of practice areas offering their...more
Here’s a familiar scenario. An applicant files a first patent application with medium-to-narrow claim coverage. The first patent application issues with some or substantial patent term adjustment (PTA) caused by one or more...more
Gain a comprehensive understanding of Hatch-Waxman and BPCIA essentials, a critical competency for legal and business professionals in the biopharmaceutical arena. Attend ACI’s Hatch-Waxman and BPCIA Proficiency Series...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the US Patent & Trademark Office’s (PTO) decision on a patent term adjustment (PTA), finding that it was appropriate to deduct days from a patent term when the...more
In Sawstop Holding LLC v. Vidal the Federal Circuit confirmed what many practitioners suspected— the Patent and Trademark Office will only award a patent term adjustment to offset a delay caused by appellate review of a...more
Earlier this month, the Federal Circuit affirmed the grant of summary judgment in favor of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, finding that the USPTO did not...more
Summary: When a patent claim is subject to adverse determinations of patentability first before the PTO and again after appeal, the claim is not entitled to patent term adjustment for the period of the appeal even if the...more