USPTO Expands Patent Application Backlog Reduction Stimulus Plan

By Sarah Fendrick --

Last fall, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office implemented a procedure that allowed small entities to have an application accorded special status examination if the applicant expressly abandoned another co-pending unexamined application (see "USPTO Implements Patent Application Backlog Reduction Stimulus Plan").  In a notice published in the Federal Register (75 Fed. Reg. 36063) earlier this summer, the backlog program was expanded by eliminating the small entity requirement and extending the program's effective date to December 31, 2010 or the date on which 10,000 applications have been accorded special status, whichever occurs first.  Under the expanded program, the following new requirements must be satisfied to achieve special status:

1.  The letter of express abandonment filed in the copending nonprovisional application must also include a statement that the applicant has not and will not file a new application that claims the same invention claimed in the expressly abandoned application;

2.  The applicant has not received special status for more than fourteen other applications under the program;

3.  A petition under 37 C.F.R. § 1.102 that: (i) Includes a specific identification of the relationship between the applications that qualifies the application for special status (e.g., identifying, by name, a common inventor, assignee or owner); (ii) identifies, by application number if available, the application that is being expressly abandoned; (iii) provides a statement certifying that the applicant has not filed petitions in more than fourteen other applications requesting special status under the program (the fifteen application limitation is based upon ownership of the pending applications); and (iv) provides a statement that the applicant agrees to make an election without  traverse in a telephonic interview if the Office determines that the claims of the application to be made special are directed to two or more independent and distinct inventions.

An application must have a filing date earlier than October 1, 2009 to be accorded special status under the expanded Backlog Reduction Program.

Comments

[patent litigation]

Thankfully, these new requirements appear to at least partially address the concerns of some that expansion of the Plan would allow larger entities to improperly "game" the patent application system in their favor, to the detriment of small entities and independent inventors.
http://www.generalpatent.com/media/videos/general-patent-gets-results-its-clients