By Christopher P. Singer --
In a Federal Register pre-publication Notice scheduled to be published officially in tomorrow's Federal Register, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that it plans to hold a roundtable discussion regarding deferred examination options (UPDATE: the notice has now been published in the Federal Register at 74 Fed. Reg. 4946). The announcement, and roundtable, is designed to assess whether there is general public interest in establishing a route of deferred examination of patent applications, and to discuss ideas about how deferred examination could be implemented. The roundtable discussion is currently scheduled for Thursday, February 12, 2009 (9:00 am to 12:30 pm EST). While the roundtable is currently planned to be open to the public, the number of participants will be limited. This will help to guarantee that all roundtable participants will have adequate opportunity to comment during the discussion. The USPTO plans to select participants in order to provide a balance of views (patent users, practitioners, industry, academia, independent inventor organizations, and government).
Anyone interested in participating in the roundtable must send a request to the USPTO by e-mail to [email protected]. The request must include the following: (1) name of participant and contact information (phone number and e-mail address); and (2) the organization the participant represents.
The general public should be able to observe the roundtable discussion (either in person or via webcast) without having to submit any specific request to do so. Members of the public will also have the opportunity to submit written comments to the USPTO regarding the issues raised during the roundtable, or any additional issues relating to a potential route of deferred examination. While the PTO does not plan to publish these written comments in a "comment and response" analysis (this is not a notice of proposed rulemaking), the USPTO plans to review and consider any and all written comments it receives regarding this issue.
• "U.S. Chamber of Commerce Provides Detailed Recommendations to New Administration Regarding USPTO," January 8, 2009
• "Director Answers House Subcommittee's Questions," June 12, 2008
• "Post-GSK: Where DoWe Go from Here? - Deferred Examination," November 12, 2007
Deferred examination sounds like a great idea!
Posted by: Pacific Reporter | January 27, 2009 at 11:10 AM