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USPTO Clarifies Declaration Requirements

By William F. Heinze

On January 22, 2008, the USPTO announced that all patent oaths or declarations filed on or after June 1, 2008, will be required to include the language specified in 37 CFR Section 1.63(b)(3) requiring that the oath or declaration must

State that the person making the oath or declaration acknowledges the duty to disclose to the Office all information known to the person to be material to patentability as defined in § 1.56.

For currently pending applications and issued patents, the USPTO is waving the requirement where the oath or declaration is filed before June 1, 2008.

According to the Notice, many of the oaths or declaration currently being submitted continue to use "material to the examination of the application" language in place of "material to patentability" and "in accordance with Section 1.56(a)" instead of "as defined in Section 1.56."

"The announcement was posted as a skanky scanned version of a printed document, that had not been OCR'ed," gripes The Patent Prospector, echoing my own pet peeve.

Just one more reason to stick the the official Form SB01. . . .

Full post as published by I/P Updates on January 24, 2008 (boomark / email).