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: Just a Patent Examiner

Request for Status

It's no secret that the Office is having a little backlog problem.

One of the side effects is that I occasionally pick up new applications for which the attorneys have filed a request for status. Sometimes, they've filed more than one.

The requests are all of basically the same form: "Hey, I filed this thing x months ago, and I still haven't heard anything. Can you please give me some indication of when I might see a first Office action???"

It makes me wonder whether anyone ever gets a reply. I see all those requests, but I have never seen any indication in the file wrapper that the applicant/attorney has been contacted with an answer. Based on this, I have to assume that there is no formal mechanism to send any replies to status requests (although I certainly don't know that for a fact).

If this is in fact the case, why do the attorneys continue to file the requests? Is it one of those things that IP firms just automatically send out after a certain amount of time has passed, without really expecting any reply? Maybe they just want to register their complaint on the prosecution record?

Whenever I pick up an application for which one of these requests has been filed 9 or 12 (or more) months previous, I wonder if I should take the time to call the attorney and tell them that I'm taking up their application for examination. I've never bothered, though, under the assumption that since they'll receive their Office action within a couple of weeks, there's really not much point.

A good assumption? Well, I don't really know for sure. Would attorneys really want a phone call with a status update under those circumstances?

Full post as published by Just a Patent Examiner on August 02, 2007 (boomark / email).