13 September 2006

Recent changes in US patent law

On 3 January 2006, the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) published proposed changes to rules on continuing applications and the examination of claims. The USPTO is proposing to limit the number of continuing applications, which may be filed as a matter of right, to one, and the number of claims that would be examined in each application to ten. A complete text of the proposed rules may be found on: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/notices/71fr48.pdf and http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/notices/71fr61.pdf

On 10. july 2006, USPTO has published the following proposed changes to the requirements for filing an Information Disclosure Statement (IDS). Before first office action, an explanation must be provided, if more that 20 references are filed or if one or more references are more than 25 pages long. After the first office action all references must be accompanied by an explanation. The fee requirements for an IDS are eliminated. Read more here: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/dapp/opla/
presentation/idsexecsummary.pdf and http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/dapp/opla/
presentation/idsnprtimelineslides.html.

The USPTO states that the changes are necesasry in order to reduce rework and increase efficiency.