Patent Law

According to an AIPLA release, the PTO will not finalize its proposed rules on IDS statements or Markush claims before a new president takes office in January 2009. Peggy Focarino (PTO Deputy Commissioner) reportedly made this announcement on October 24, 2008 at the AIPLA Annual Meeting. This decision falls in line with the OMB Memo to all federal agencies that any "final regulations should be issued no later than November 1, 2008."

As discussed earlier on Patently-O, IDS statement proposal would require an applicant to provide supplemental information for any submissions more than 25 pages in length or written in a foreign language. Likewise, the supplemental information would be required when more than 20 documents are submitted in a single case. The supplemental information includes pin-citation to important features of the document and a discussion of how the disclosed features relate to the applicant's claims.