* Up 23 percent from 2010’s expected budget.
* Proposal to increase statutory patent fees by 15 percent.
* USPTO hoping to reduce average of 34.6 months to approve or reject a patent application.
links: FY2010 President’s Budget Request, USPTO Budget, Plans, and Reports.
(via U.S. patent office gets boost in Obama budget | Reuters)
The claim and continuation rules that were supposed to go into effect on November 1, 2007 are dying a slow death… thankfully.
via Law.com - PTO Rescinds Controversial Patent Rules.
EFS-Web is the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) web-based patent application and document submission system. I have been filing all my documents electronically since the USPTO started beta testing electronic filing (and I am shocked to see that some law firms still do not use electronic filing). All documents filed via EFS-Web must be pdfs with embedded fonts, or image-based pdfs.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Friday in a split decision that the Patent and Trademark Office did not overstep its authority in adopting a set of new rules that some intellectual property lawyers say fundamentally alter patent practice and threaten innovation.
via Law.com - Federal Circuit Sides With PTO in Dispute [...]