Patent Baristas

Jon Dudas, Commissioner of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, urged Congress to move ahead with legislation to improve the patent system. He told a U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary subcommittee that it should adopt provisions that would prevent questionable patents from being approved and give companies more leeway to challenge patents after they’re issued. […]

The USPTO is proposing changes to the rules of practice relating to ex parte and inter partes reexamination. The USPTO is proposing to provide for a patent owner reply to a request for reexamination prior to the Examiner’s decision on the request. Currently, most requests are allowed and the new procedures may help cut down […]

The biggest invention news this week has not been American Inventor but an update to the way patent applications are filed. While we’ve been participating in the beta testing program for months now, the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) has officially released the new electronic filing system (EFS-Web) that will allow applicants to […]

Earlier, I asked if anyone could provide insight into the U.S. Patent Office’s proposed rules to limit the number of continuing, CIP and RCE applications that can be filed by patent applicants. Mr. Roy Marsh, a European Patent Attorney in Munich with Hoffmann Eitle, writes: I surmise that the USPTO is envious of EPO success […]

News of patent anarchy are ringing throughout the land citing the troubles with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) both for its long processing times and cries that it issues too many “unworthy” patents, which fall into the hands of the evil Patent Trolls who hold up legitimate businesses for ransom. While the troll […]

The USPTO has proposed rules to limit the number of continuing, CIP and RCE applications that can be filed by patent applicants. See here for the notice. Why have continuations become the current whipping boy for the Patent Office? The Notices states that “current practice allows an applicant to generate an unlimited string of continued […]

“What To Do About Bad Patents” under Briefly Noted by Profs. Lemley, Lichtman and Sampat (the Profs.) bemoans today’s patents, and then asks whether past problems provide a formula for new solutions. In their equation, opposing values are placed on either side of the equal sign. (If not for our talent of scaling justice, and […]

I received a letter from a reader asking about the current status of the reexamination request on Pfizer’s Viagra (sildenafil citrate) patent (U.S. Pat. No. 6,469,012). I always appreciate hearing from readers and don’t mind trying to answer questions (when I can) so I reviewed the file history. The proceedings are now merged (consolidated into […]