Comments on Deferred Examination Due by February 26th

    By Donald Zuhn --

It's been more than a week since the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office hosted a roundtable discussion on deferred examination.  The roundtable brought together two dozen participants, representing a variety of industries and organizations, to discuss whether a deferred examination system should be implemented in the U.S.  Ron Katznelson, who participated in the roundtable, recently contacted us to let us know that the webcast can be viewed at https://uspto.connectsolutions.com/p91717658 (for some reason, the USPTO has yet to update its notice regarding the roundtable participants and agenda to provide a link to the recorded webcast, or post a link to that notice on its "News and Notices" page).

Dr. Katznelson (at left) also wanted to remind interested practitioners and applicants that while the roundtable may be over, the USPTO is still accepting comments on deferred examination from the public.  As we noted last month, the USPTO published a notice in the Federal Register (74 Fed. Reg. 4946) seeking participants for the roundtable discussion (see "USPTO Schedules Roundtable Discussion on Deferred Examination").  In addition, the notice sought written comments from the public "on issues raised at the roundtable or on any issue pertaining to deferral of examination."  The deadline for submission of written comments is February 26, 2009.  Written comments should be sent by e-mail to [email protected] or by regular mail addressed to:  Mail Stop Comments -- Patents, Commissioner for Patents, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313–1450, marked to the attention of Robert W. Bahr.  The USPTO notice indicates that all comments will be made available for public inspection at the Office of the Commissioner of Patents, as well as on the USPTO website.

While there's no substitute for actually viewing the four-hour long roundtable discussion, Patent Docs readers who are short on time can get a flavor for all of the participants' comments in our posts on the deferred examination proponents and opponents who attended the roundtable.  Both of these posts provide more information regarding the participants' affiliations than was made available in the USPTO notice, and should be helpful when crafting comments regarding deferred examination or replies to remarks made by any of the participants during the roundtable.

For additional information regarding this topic, please see:
• "Patent Office Hosts Roundtable on Deferred Examination: The Proponents," February 15, 2009
• "Patent Office Hosts Roundtable on Deferred Examination: The Opposition," February 12, 2009
• "Patent Office Announces Agenda and Participants for Deferred Examination Roundtable," February 9, 2009
• "USPTO Schedules Roundtable Discussion on Deferred Examination," January 27, 2009