Intellectual Property Law

Recent Goings On at the Office

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USPTO Creates Online Subscription Center as Part of Expanded Communications and Outreach Effort

The Press Release.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today continued to expand its public outreach efforts with the launch of an online Subscription Center. The Center enables the public to easily subscribe via e-mail to an array of USPTO newsletters and alerts. The hub can be found here.

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USPTO Creates "E-mail Hotline" For New Detroit Office Hiring News

The Press Release.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is streamlining hiring information for people interested in job opportunities at the agency?s new office in Detroit with the creation of an e-mail hotline. Those interested in working for the USPTO in Detroit can ask questions or sign up to receive information about the hiring process by sending an e-mail to DetroitHiring@uspto.gov. All details on job openings, requirements and experience needed, and how to apply will be included in official hiring announcements to be released in the spring. The new mailbox will help the USPTO quickly relay the latest job information to interested members of the public.

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USPTO Introduces Online Tools to Solicit Public Feedback on Patent and Trademark Examining Procedures

The Press Release.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today introduced two online discussion tools designed to solicit input from the intellectual property (IP) community on how the USPTO can update and improve the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) and Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure (TMEP).

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A New Pilot Program Concerning Public Submission of Peer Reviewed Prior Art

The OG Notice.

In June of 2007, the USPTO announced a pilot program to determine the extent to which the organized submission of documents together with comments by the public would be useful to examiners. See Pilot Concerning Public Submission of Peer Reviewed Prior Art, 1319 Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 146 (Jun. 26, 2007). The purpose of the pilot was to test whether such collaboration could effectively locate prior art that might not otherwise be located by the USPTO during the typical patent examination process.

In the interest of gathering data from a more diverse pool of patent applications, the USPTO in cooperation with the New York Law School's Center for Patent Innovations is launching a new one-year pilot. This pilot will test the scalability of the peer review concept by expanding the candidate pool of applications to technology areas such as Life Sciences, Telecommunications, Business Methods and Computer Hardware and Software, and by significantly increasing the total number of applications that may be accepted into the pilot. This pilot will also streamline the participation process by utilizing automation solutions.

Full post as published by Just a Patent Examiner on January 24, 2011 (boomark / email).