From the category archives:

USPTO - news

USPTO Director Announces President Obama’s FY 2011 Budget Request for the USPTO

February 1, 2010

In a press release today, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) David Kappos today announced President Obama’s $2.322 billion fiscal year 2011 (FY 2011) budget request for the USPTO.
The president’s budget request for FY 2011 will support a five-year plan designed to enable [...]

Read the full article →

USPTO Announces Interim Procedure for Patentees to Request Patent Term Adjustment Recalculation

January 29, 2010

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced on January 28, 2010 that it will provide patentees with the ability to request a recalculation of their patent term adjustment without a fee or petition as is normally required pending completion of necessary modifications to the USPTO’s computer program for calculating patent term adjustments.  The agency [...]

Read the full article →

USPTO Provides Guidance For Claims Directed To Computer Readable Media

January 29, 2010

In a notice dated January 26, 2010, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) provided guidance for patent applicants who use claims directed to computer readable media  (also called machine readable media and similar variations).  A problem has developed in the way the USPTO and the courts have interpreted such claims, i.e., they may [...]

Read the full article →

USPTO Calculations For Patent Term Adjustments Have Been Wrong

January 12, 2010

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been erroneously calculating the periods of patent term adjustment for PTO delays in issuing patents, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held on January 7, 2010.  The court refused to accept the PTO’s interpretation of 35 U.S.C . 156(b)(1) for purposes of identifying “periods [...]

Read the full article →

USPTO To Accelerate Examination of Green Tech Patents

December 7, 2009

Inventors Digest is reporting here that the USPTO is launching a pilot program (“Green Tech”) which will permit patent applications pertaining to environmental quality, energy conservation, development of renewable energy resources, and greenhouse gas emission reduction to be accorded special status and be examined on an accelerated basis. The program is designed to accelerate the development [...]

Read the full article →

USPTO Director Kappos Discusses New Blog

November 10, 2009

Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) David Kappos today launched a blog to foster a direct dialogue with the USPTO’s stakeholders and the general public.
“It’s important for me to be able to hear directly from the IP community, and that is why we [...]

Read the full article →

USPTO Director Announces New Initiative To Accelerate The Patent Process For Independent Inventors

November 9, 2009

On November 5, 2009, USPTO Director David Kappos delivered the keynote address at the 14th Annual Independent Inventors Conference held at USPTO’s headquarters in Alexandria, Va.
During the address, Director Kappos announced a new initiative that is specifically designed to accelerate the patent process for independent inventors.  He called it a “backlog reduction pilot project” that [...]

Read the full article →

USPTO Rescinds Controversial Patent Regulations Package

October 8, 2009

Agency Files Joint Motion with Plaintiff GlaxoSmithKline to Dismiss Lawsuit Related to Proposed Claims and Continuation Rules
Today, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos signed a new Final Rule rescinding highly controversial regulations, proposed by the previous administration, that patent applicants felt unduly restricted their capacity to protect intellectual property.  The regulations, which [...]

Read the full article →

WIPO Lists Top PCT Applicants For 2008

September 24, 2009

As we reported here, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recently published its latest compilation of IP-related statistics.  Annex B to the report is a list of the top PCT applicants in 2008.  That list is available below (please click on the image to open a larger version that is easier to read and can [...]

Read the full article →

WIPO Report Shows Growth in IP Rights before Onset of Economic Crisis

September 23, 2009

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) announced a new report monitoring recent trends in intellectual property (IP) activity.  The report shows that demand for IP rights continued to increase prior to the onset of the global economic crisis, with 1.85 million patent (+3.7% increase over 2006), almost 3.3 million trademark (+1.6%) and approximately 0.62 million [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries