By Sarah Fendrick --
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
recently published a notice in the Federal Register (75 Fed. Reg. 29321) announcing that the Office will streamline procedures for the review of
appeal briefs in ex parte reexamination
proceeding appeals. The new
procedures were implemented in an effort to increase the efficiency of the
appeal process and to reduce the processing time of appeals in ex parte reexamination proceedings. Under the new streamlined procedure, instead of examiners reviewing appeal
briefs to determine if they comply with applicable regulations, the task will
be completed by the Chief Judge of the Board of Patent Appeals and
Interferences (BPAI) or the Chief Judge's designee. If the Chief Judge determines the appeal brief complies with the applicable
regulations, the appeal brief will be forwarded to the examiner for
consideration. On the other hand,
if the appeal brief is found to be noncompliant the Chief Judge will issue a notice
of a noncompliant brief and require a corrected appeal brief. Under the new streamlined procedures,
the Chief Judge will also determine compliance of corrected appeal briefs.
By assigning the task to the Chief Judge, the USPTO
aims to increase consistency in the determination of compliance of appeal
briefs and in turn reducing the filing of corrective appeal briefs in ex parte reexamination proceeding
appeals. The streamlined procedure became effective on May 25, 2010 and to
date, is only applicable to appeals in ex
parte reexamination proceedings. However, the USPTO is considering
implementing the procedure for inter
partes reexamination proceedings as well.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but are we talking about the Chief Judge (or, almost certainly, his designee) doing what examiners ought to be doing, because the examiners aren't doing it right?
Posted by: James Demers | July 22, 2010 at 09:41 PM