(Podcast) The Briefing: A Very Patented Christmas – The Quirkiest Inventions for the Holiday Season
The Briefing: A Very Patented Christmas – The Quirkiest Inventions for the Holiday Season
5 Key Takeaways | Alice at 10: A Section 101 Update
Third Party Observation in Patent Prosecution in China
Ways to Amend the Claims in the Patent Invalidation Proceedings
Cases Updated in CNIPA Guidelines - Eligibility & Inventiveness for AI & Business Method Applications
Five Impactful USPTO Procedural Developments for Patent Practitioners
Podcast: Patentable Subject Matter in 2019
This article continues our analysis of over 89,000 patents to determine how the number of office actions to allowance during prosecution impacts litigation outcomes. Last month we discussed how prosecution length impacts...more
According to recent U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (Office) data, the Office receives a burdensome number (13%) of information disclosure statements (IDSs) having in excess of 50 total items of information. 89 Fed. Reg....more
In the mid-2000s, the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO) determined that reexaminations would be more consistent and legally correct if performed by a centralized set of experienced and specially trained Examiners. As a result, the...more
It’s been 10 years since Alice was decided. Kilpatrick’s Steve Borgman and Andrew Saul recently presented at the 29th Annual Advanced Patent Law Institute in Austin, Texas, on recent cases and trends in the courts and the...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sitting en banc recently overruled the long-standing test for determining obviousness of design patents in LKQ Corporation, Keystone Automotive Industries, Inc. v. GM Global...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a Memorandum to the Corps of Patent Examiners (the “Guidance”), attempting to provide clarity in the wake of the Federal Circuit’s highly anticipated en banc...more
A significant procedure for patent owners, Supplemental Examination, was established in the 2012 America Invents Act when Congress determined there should be a proceeding to turn events that in the past could lead to...more
Through the vicissitudes of the continuing chaos of subject matter eligibility, Senators Coons and Tillis have been steadfast in attempting to provide a legislative solution. They chaired a series of Congressional hearings in...more
Patent eligibility is broken. The only semi-cogent arguments that I have ever heard in support of the status quo is that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issues too many broad, vague patents, and that 35 U.S.C. § 101...more
There is ample evidence that patent examiner allowance rates vary dramatically from examiner to examiner and art unit to art unit.[1] This has resulted in the general understanding that there are "easy" examiners and "tough"...more
On December 22, 2022, the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) announced the fifth extension of the Modified COVID-19 Prioritized Examination Pilot Program. The pilot program had been set to terminate on December 31, 2022, and...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) established its Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in September 2012. As mandated by the America Invents Act, the PTAB conducts administrative trials, such as inter partes...more
Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) introduced S. 4734, entitled "A Bill to amend Title 35, U.S. Code, to address matters relating to patent subject matter eligibility, and for other purposes" last night, as was discussed in an...more
Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (at right) released a blog post on the USPTO's Director's Blog on Monday addressing the fraught subject...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office handles hundreds of thousands of patent applications per year, as well as various types of administrative patent proceedings. While the USPTO has made incremental improvements in its...more
Patent examiners have a hard job. They are given a relatively short amount of time in which they are supposed to thoroughly review a patent application, search for relevant prior art, and write a well-reasoned Office...more
On a spring Saturday in a year when three major holidays -- Easter, Passover, and Ramadan -- coincided or overlapped, The New York Times Editorial Board decided it was time to announce that the "United States Patent and...more
Updated First Office Action Estimator Tool Now Available - In a Patent Alert email distributed earlier today, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that an updated First Office Action Estimator online tool is now...more
The US Patent and Trademark Office is implementing a pilot program to allow participating applicants to defer responding to subject matter eligibility rejections until the earlier of a final disposition of the application, or...more
After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its 15th annual list of top patent stories. For 2021, we identified nine stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year that we believe had...more
Patent Prosecution Highway or PPH is a set of initiatives promulgated by participating patent offices around the world to accelerate patent prosecution in countries of the participating patent offices. PPH allows the...more
As the world pivoted to navigate obstacles brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the USPTO not only adapted to address the challenges, but appeared to make the most of this period by improving existing procedures. Partner...more
If last week’s post on prosecution disclaimer left you hoping for more decisions about the patent application process, you're in luck. This week we're covering another case about patent prosecution and the somewhat rare...more
HYATT v. HIRSHFELD - Before Reyna, Wallach, and Hughes. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Summary: The PTO met its burden to prove prosecution laches for bulk-filed patent...more
Patent examiners operate under a complex network of production and quality incentives that influence the likelihood that an examiner will allow or reject a given patent application. In an empirical study published in the...more