USPTO Pilot Program Accelerates the Patent Process for Small Entity Inventors
January 29, 2010
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced a pilot program to assist small entity inventors with expediting the patent process. In brief, the program gives small entity inventors having two or more currently pending patent applications the ability to control the priority in which their applications are examined. “The program will accelerate protection for important innovations from independent inventors while reducing our unacceptable backlog,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos. “Getting these inventions to the marketplace quickly will also help stimulate the economy and create jobs.”
Typically, patent applications are examined according to their filing date. Under the pilot program, a small entity applicant may have an application granted special status for examination if it meets certain criteria. Importantly, the applicant must be willing to expressly abandon one co-pending unexamined application, in order to have another application advanced out of turn in the examination queue. Additionally, the application for which special status is sought must have been filed before October 1, 2009 and the co-pending applications must be owned by the same party or name a common inventor as of October 1, 2009. Please refer to the Federal Register for a complete list of requirements http://www.uspto.gov/patents/law/notices/74fr62285.pdf.
For questions or assistance with submitting your application for accelerated review, please contact:
Jill Gorny Sloper at jgornysloper@lahive.com or 617.994.0869
