By Jason Derry & Christopher P. Singer --
After one year of service, it's pretty safe to say that the U.S. Patent Office got it right with the EFS-Web electronic patent filing system. No more waiting to get that postcard back to ensure your filing date. No more midnight runs to the 24-hour Post Office. No more envelopes, copies of transmittal letters, or express mail receipts to worry about. Applications are instantly assigned application serial numbers. Applicants can file International applications and sequence listings on-line. To many, the system has become such an integral part of their prosecution practice that it seems to have been in place forever. Yes, the USPTO has actually made life a little easier for patent practitioners (at least as far as the filing of documents is concerned).
In celebrating the first full year of the EFS-Web filing system, the USPTO noted that the system has far exceeded its first year goals. According to a Patent Office press release, "today more than half of all new patent applications are filed" electronically. The USPTO highlighted the success of the program, stating that over half of all new patent applications are filed electronically, outpacing the traditional paper-based application filing route. In total, over 700,000 documents have been filed through EFS-Web.
EFS-Web Tip: As most of you may know - given the above statistics - applicants filing patent applications in excess of 100 pages receive a fee discount for those excess pages when filed using EFS-Web (each page above 100 is treated as .75 page). Given that the current excess pages fee is $250 ($125 for small entity) for each 50 pages above 100, this discount can provide significant savings on filing fees, particularly for provisional applications.
Comments