The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will be offering the next webinar in its Patent Quality Chat webinar series from 2:00 to 3:00 pm (ET) on January 10, 2019. In the latest webinar, on the "Revised Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance," USPTO Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy Bob Bahr and Senior Legal Advisor Matthew Sked will discuss the revised guidance and the changes it makes to how USPTO personnel apply the first step of the Supreme Court's Alice/Mayo test (Step 2A in Office guidance) for subject matter eligibility, and specifically, how the revised guidance creates a new inquiry in Step 2A, in which a claim is not "directed to" a recited judicial exception if the claim integrates the judicial exception into a practical application. The revised guidance also groups the types of subject matter that are considered abstract ideas and directs USPTO personnel to use these groupings to identify abstract ideas in revised Step 2A.
Additional information regarding this webinar, including instructions for viewing the webinar, can be found here.
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