USPTO First Office Action Estimator Now Available

Maier & Maier

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) has announced the availability of an online First Office Action Estimator tool to provide an estimate on when to expect a first Office Action for pending U.S. patent applications.

The estimator has been updated to account for the recent changes to the methodology for assigning patent applications to patent examiners.  In fiscal year 2001, the USPTO transitioned to using the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) to assign applications.

While the estimator can provide helpful insight, the estimates are not guaranteed by the USPTO.

You may access the First Office Action Estimator here.

USPTO Deferred Subject Matter Eligibility Response (DSMER) Pilot Program to Launch February 1, 2022

Maier & Maier

A new Deferred Subject Matter Eligibility Response (DSMER) Pilot Program will launch at the USPTO on February 1, 2022. This Pilot Program is designed to address issues currently present in examination of applications for eligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101.

The Pilot Program will allow applicants to defer examination under Section 101, such that the application is first examined under all grounds of patentability under Sections 102, 103, and 112. Under the Pilot, applicants will first amend claims to overcome rejections under the more objective patentability standards of these Sections, which may also have the benefit of informing the examiner that the claims are eligible under Section 101 as well. Subsequent to examination under these Sections, the examiner will conduct an eligibility analysis under Section 101. It is intended that such an examination sequence will result in stronger, more reliable, and higher quality patents.

Participation in this program is by invitation only. The criteria for participating in this program are listed on the DSMER Pilot Program page of the USPTO website.

Additional Filing Fee for Non-DOCX Format Delayed Until 2023

Maier & Maier

An additional filing fee for any nonprovisional utility patent application filed under 35 U.S.C. 111, including continuing applications, that are not filed in DOCX format was set to take effect on January 1, 2022.  However, on November 22, 2021, the USPTO issued a final rule delaying the effective date of the new fee until January 1, 2023.  The reason for the delay is to give both the USPTO and applicants more time to adjust to DOCX filing procedures and to address known issues.

United States Patent and Trademark Office Expands Prioritized Examination (Track One) Program

Maier & Maier

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has further expanded their Track One prioritized examination program by increasing the annual limit on accepted requests. Previously, the USPTO only accepted 12,000 Track One requests per fiscal year, but this announcement increases the limit to 15,000 requests per year.

Track One expedites the patent prosecution process by allowing applicants to receive a final disposition (such as a notice of allowance or final rejection) of a patent application within twelve months from the date of the Track One request.

This is an important development, since Track One allows applicants to avoid lengthy prosecution with less requirements than other prioritized examination programs. An application under Track One typically receives a final disposition in under six months on average. Non-track one applications, however, don’t even receive a first office action for over 16 months, and remain pending for an average of 23.2 months.

At Maier & Maier we take pride in developing sophisticated patent portfolios for our clients and are well equipped to navigate and take advantage of the Track One, Patent Prosecution Highway, or other programs offered by the USPTO.

Arthrex: Supreme Court Upholds PTAB Judges

Maier & Maier

After facing extreme uncertainty at the Federal Circuit, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (“PTAB”) judges have avoided calamity as the Supreme Court upheld their appointment process as constitutional in Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew. In their final decision, the Court held that while their appointment was upheld, the review process for their decisions was not and remanded the case down to the acting USPTO Director for further consideration.

The case began in an inter partes review proceeding at the PTAB and was appealed to the Federal Circuit on the basis that the Administrative Patent Judges comprising the Board are principal officers, who need Presidential appointment with the advice and consent of the Senate. This was premised on the lack of review their decisions receive from the USPTO Director, who is a duly appointed principal officer. According to 35 U. S. C. §6(c), “only the Patent Trial and Appeal Board may grant rehearings”. By insolating the APJs from Director’s review, Arthrex argued that they were converted to principal officers and their appointment was unconstitutional.

At the Federal Circuit, the panel agreed. Because the review process vested the APJ’s with power that exceeded that of an inferior officer, their appointment by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce was insufficient to satisfy the constitutional requirement. To cure this, the Federal Circuit declared that the tenure provision of the APJ’s was unconstitutional. This allowed the USPTO Director to fire them at their discretion and imbued the Director with a form of review over their processes. By giving the Director this authority, the Federal Circuit believed the APJ’s were satisfactorily inferior officers and their appointment could be upheld.

After the denied en banc rehearing, the Supreme Court disagreed in a splintered decision by the Justices. The opinion of the Court was authored by Justice Roberts and joined for Parts I and II by Justices Gorsuch, Alito, Barrett, and Kavanaugh. The crux of the decision rests on the review process itself being unconstitutional and curing it by remanding the case to the Director for their constitutionally mandated authority to review. As the Court explains, the statute “is unenforceable as applied to the Director insofar as it prevents the Director from reviewing the decisions of the PTAB on his own. The Director may engage in such review and reach his own decision.”

By striking the limitation on the Director, the Supreme Court has upheld the validity of the PTAB and its proceedings and prevented what could have been an extreme period of uncertainty for patent owners with the review process in total flux.

If you have any questions or concerns about how this or any other recent news may affect your portfolio or interests, please reach out to one of our attorneys here.

Overcoming Sect. 101 Rejections: USPTO Guidance, Recent Decisions to Meet Sect. 101 Patent Eligibility Requirements

Daniel Ehrlich

Maier & Maier is pleased to announce that distinguished partner, Stephen Kunin, will be speaking in an upcoming Strafford live video webinar, “Overcoming Sect. 101 Rejections: USPTO Guidance, Recent Decisions to Meet Sect. 101 Patent Eligibility Requirements” scheduled for Tuesday, April 27, 1:00pm-2:30pm EDT.

We encourage anyone interested in Section 101 issues at the USPTO to tune in.  The panel will review case law, USPTO guidance, and offer response strategies.

For more information or to register >

 

USPTO Extends AFCP 2.0 Until September 30, 2019

Maier & Maier

The U.S. Patent Office announced that the After-Final Consideration Pilot 2.0 (AFCP 2.0) will be extended another year. Originally implemented in May 2013, the program allows for amendments and responses for the examiner’s consideration to be submitted after a Final Office Action has been sent. Prior to the implementation, applicants were limited to filing appeals or Requests for Continued Examination, both likely to be more costly options.

Of the thousands of AFCP requests submitted, approximately 25% have resulted in allowance, which, when combined with the usually lower cost of filing compared to alternatives, represents an intriguing option for those facing Final Rejections.[1] More information on the program is available at the PTO website here.

[1] https://blog.juristat.com/2017/7/12/do-afcp-20-requests-actually-work

USPTO Addresses Expanded PTAB Panels With New Standard Operating Procedures

Maier & Maier

The USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) has issued two revisions to the Standard Operating Procedures with the stated goal of “increasing transparency, predictability, and reliability across the USPTO”.

The first, SOP 1, aims to provide clarity and certainty to the PTAB practice of expanded panels, which has come under criticism in recent years as “panel stacking”. The concern is over the possibility of the PTAB making strategic additions to Board Panels and targeting rehearing proceedings to sway the composition towards a desired outcome, which was even discussed amidst the recent Oil States proceedings in the Supreme Court.

In response to these concerns, the new procedures provide two key provisions: 1. a notice requirement and 2. a specific procedure for expanded panels.

Under the previous practice, the parties might not find out that there was an expanded panel until the decision was issued as there was no requirement to notify the parties. Not so anymore as SOP1 provides that the parties will be notified that the panel will be expanded and identify the Administrative Patent Judges who will be included on the expanded panel.

The updated procedures identify five parties who may suggest an expanded panel: Board members, patent applicants, petitioners, patent owners, and the Patent Business Unit. The Board members in the case submit their requests (or the requests they receive from one of the other eligible parties) along with reasoning (in the form of a  brief for an applicant’s, petitioner’s, or patent owner’s request) in the form of an email to PTABExpandedPanelRequest@uspto.gov. This account will be monitored and requests will be periodically brought to the Chief Judge for recommendation, and the Director for final approval.

It remains to be seen if these new procedures will do enough to curtail the concerns about the practice.

The second update, SOP2, creates a Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) at the PTAB which will “decide issues of exceptional importance” with “binding agency authority”. The POP will be composed of “Director, the Deputy Director, the Commissioner for Patents, the Commissioner for Trademarks, and the administrative patent judges.” The POP will review nominated routine decisions made by panels to designate them as precedential or informative as outlined in detail in the updated SOP. Anyone may nominate a decision to be precedential, and all nominations will be reviewed by a Screening committee before being presented to the POP.

The entirety of the PTAB’s Standard Operating Procedure and any updates thereto are available here.

USPTO Proposes Patent Fee Changes

Maier & Maier

The USPTO has published a Notice in the Federal Register of proposed patent fee changes for public comments.

The fee adjustments resulting from this effort will not be implemented until the January 2021 timeframe.  The proposed average five percent increase to fees is similar to fees rising by 1.6 percent annually over a three year period.

This proposal includes introduction of new fees, targeted adjustments to existing fees, and discontinuation of some fees.

New Fees

  1. One proposed new fee is a surcharge for filing in a non-DOCX format.  This will be a $400 fee, and will encourage applicants to use the DOCX format, and is intended to improve Office efficiency and future search capabilities.
  2. Another proposed new fee is an annual active patent practitioner fee of $340 (if filed electronically). Further, a discount will be offered to those who certify completion of continued legal education (CLE), reducing the fee to $240.
  3. A fee for non-registered practitioners to appear before the PTAB is proposed.

Adjustments to Existing Fees

  1. A significant increase (525%) to the surcharge for late payment of maintenance fees.  The fee is currently $160, but will be increased to $1000 for large entities.
  2. An increase from $900 to $2000 the fee to request expedited examination of a design application, to help the Office manage staffing for these services.
  3. Issue and maintenance fees will be restructured.  The current large entity maintenance fees are $1600 (3.5 years), $3600 (7.5 years), and $7400 (11.5 years), and the proposal increases them to $2000 (3.5 years), $3760 (7.5 years), and $7700 (11.5 years).
  4. Fees for America Invents Act (AIA) trials are proposed to increase by roughly 25% due to a variety of factors, including the Supreme Court decision in SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu.

Discontinuation of Fees

Fees related to obtaining copies of Patent Grant and Patent Application Publication TIFF Images or Full-Text W/Embedded Images will be eliminated and the Office will instead provide these services, in a slightly modified form (i.e. electronic), for free.

Below is a summary table of the common fees for a large entity to illustrate some of the proposed changes.

As seen below, total filing costs for a patent application (large entity) will increase $1720 increase to $1820.

PTAB Designates 5 Decisions as Informative

Maier & Maier

The PTAB has designated five new decisions as informative, three on IPR practice procedure and two ex parte decisions (one on issue preclusion and one on claim construction):

Ariosa Diagnostics v. Isis Innovation Ltd., IPR2012-00022, Paper 55 (PTAB Aug. 7, 2013)

Here the Board provides guidance on foreign depositions, both on the location where they are taken and the language in which they are conducted. The Board emphasizes that “the parties are in the best position to determine the procedure by which the deposition is to be conducted” but provides 12 general guidelines for procedures to use for depositions in foreign languages covering such topics as 1). each sides’ right to bring an interpreter, 2). protocol for resolving disagreements between interpreters on their respective interpretations, and 3). notice requirements on documents which will be “sight read” at the deposition. The full list is available in the decision linked above.

Ex parte Jung, 2016-008290 (PTAB Mar. 22, 2017)

In this appeal, the appellant challenged the examiner’s interpretation that the claim language “at least one of a connection branch and a contents connection list” required only ‘a connection branch’ OR ‘a contents connection list’ as opposed to requiring both of their presence. In their reversal, the Board applied the ruling from the Federal Circuit in SuperGuide Corp. v. DirecTV Enterprises, Inc., which explained that the plain meaning of ‘at least one of A and B’ is the conjunctive phrase ‘at least one of A and at least one of B.”[1] The Board explained that the plain meaning could have been rebutted with a demonstration that the other claims, specification, or the prosecution history necessitated a broader interpretation, but, absent such a showing, the examiner erred.

Argentum Pharm. LLC v. Alcon Research, Ltd., IPR2017-01053, Paper 27 (PTAB Jan. 19, 2018)

In this decision, the Board offers an analysis on the ‘good cause’ standard for protective orders.  The Board denied a motion for a protective order without prejudice for failure to demonstrate that “(1) the information sought to be sealed is truly confidential, (2) a concrete harm would result upon public disclosure, (3) there exists a genuine need to rely in the trial on the specific information sought to be sealed, and (4), on balance, an interest in maintaining confidentiality outweighs the strong public interest in having an open record.”[2]

Colas Sols. Inc. v. Blacklidge Emulsions, Inc., IPR2018-00242, Paper 9 (PTAB Feb. 27, 2018)

The decision here applies to § 315 bars to institution in IPRs. Specifically, the Board found institution was barred when a petitioner has previously filed for a declaratory judgment of invalidity on the same patent.  Furthermore, the Board ruled that a motion for joinder could not save a petitioner from the statutory bar under § 315(a)(1). In its reasoning, the Board explains that while a § 315(b) time bar is specifically excluded in instances of joinder under § 315 (c), the statutory bar for § 315(a)(1) provides for no such exemption.

Ex parte Ditzik, 2018-000087 (PTAB Mar. 2, 2018)

Here, the Board upheld an examiner’s use of issue preclusion from a related invalidity finding against the applicant in District Court. In so doing, the Board found the following arguments by the appealing applicant accurate, but unpersuasive with respect to issue preclusion: 1). The fact that the claims are not the same in the proceedings; 2). The procedural possibility for the District Court ruling to be overturned; and 3). The PTO’s absence as a party from the District Court proceeding. While the Board did not find any of the following in this case, it allowed for potential rebuttals to issue preclusion when 1). The standard applied in the prior final decision might have caused a different outcome than before the Board; 2). Evidence available now was demonstrated to not be available at the time of the prior proceeding; or 3). There was otherwise not a ‘full and fair opportunity to litigate’ in the prior proceeding and the Board wishes to exercise its discretion despite the motivations of efficiency and consistency for issue preclusion.

Each decision is linked in the respective heading above for more information and reference, and a full list of all precedential and informative decisions is available here.

[1] 358 F.3d 870, 885-86 (Fed. Cir. 2004).

[2] 37 C.F.R. § 42.54(a).