It is no question that Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) technologies have popped up in all aspects of society such as online shopping, music streaming, and social networking. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) has...more
Examiner interviews are often indispensable to advance prosecution of a U.S. patent application, and interviews can help advance prosecution in the vast majority of applications. The Midwest Regional U.S. Patent and Trademark...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
In July 2019 the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) newly designated four decisions as informative to highlight the PTAB’s general consensus on issues considered in these cases. All four cases involve the PTAB applying...more
Patent practitioners, inventors, in-house counsel, and patent examiners alike have been clamoring for more guidance on computer-implemented functional claim limitations invoking § 112(f) since the Federal Circuit’s en banc...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
Struggling to keep case law relating to subject matter eligibility organized? In February 2018, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released an improved Eligibility Quick Reference Sheet, providing patent...more
We can take two valuable lessons from a recent decision of the Federal Circuit:
1. Review all check boxes on forms when filing a U.S. patent application; and
2. The United States Patent and Trademark Office is not...more
Under U.S. patent law, while there is no duty to perform a search of relevant art, inventors and those associated with filing or prosecuting patent applications as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.56 have a duty to disclose to the...more
In patent prosecution, the feedback loop between interested parties including patent prosecutors, inventors, and in-house counsel helps to provide the best patent applications and office action responses for a high quality...more
This article is second in a series focusing on various issues related to Patent Term Adjustment for U.S. patent applications. While Part 1 is a general overview of how to calculate patent term adjustment (“PTA”), this...more
U.S. patent applicants often have an interest in expediting the patent examination process. The desire to speed examination can result from issues related to the availability of an inventor, possible infringing activity by a...more