Patent Baristas

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to review a decision in a patent case which questions what things are patentable, including software and business strategies.  The applicants have filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court to appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in In re [...]

James Greenwood, President & CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), wrote an open letter to President-Elect Obama for his ideas on reform for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. With more than 1.2 million patent applications pending before its more than 6,000 examiners, there is a sense that something needs to give.
Notably, the backlog [...]

The Ex Parte Appeal Rule which was set to go into effect December 10, 2008 is officially DELAYED.  The Rules will not go into effect tomorrow as originally posted.  A notice to be published in tomorrow’s Federal Register reads as follows:
The proposed information collection request is currently under consideration for approval by OMB.  The review [...]

On June 10, 2008, the USPTO published new Rules of Practice Before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences in Ex Parte Appeals (73 Fed. Reg. 32937-32977, June 10, 2008; Final Rule). The new rules apply to all appeals in which an appeal brief is filed on or after December 10, 2008.
However, before these rules [...]

Dear editor,
Your blog at http://www.patentbaristas.com/archives/2008/12/05/new-uspto-patent-appeal-procedures-still-on-for-december-10-2008/#respond has a quote from an OMB spokesperson who was asked about the appeal rule’s review:
“The Paperwork Reduction Act gives OMB 60 days to review agency information collections. While every effort is made to conclude reviews within this time-frame occasionally reviews take longer in order to gather and analyze the necessary [...]

The quarterly customer partnership meeting of the biotechnology, chemical, and pharmaceutical (BCP) technology groups at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, provided an update on the training and development of Examiners.  Janet Gongola, Associate Solicitor for the Office of the Solicitor, presented a new training module for teaching patent examining corps about case law.
According to [...]

Well, oral arguments were held yesterday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to hear the matter of the Tafas v. Dudas and the US Patent Office, an appeal of the claims and continuations rules promulgated by the USPTO which were preliminarily enjoined and ultimately permanently enjoined by the District Court effect [...]

On June 10, 2008, the USPTO published new Rules of Practice Before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences in Ex Parte Appeals (73 Fed. Reg. 32937-32977, June 10, 2008; Final Rule). The new rules apply to all appeals in which an appeal brief is filed on or after December 10, 2008.
The Board of Patent [...]