USPTO seeks Public Participation

Barely a month after being ranked as the 5^th best organization in the U.S federal sector, the USPTO made another commendable move by requesting public comments on potential practices that applicants can employ during drafting in order to facilitate examination and bring added certainty to the scope of issued patents. On January 3^rd 2013, the USPTO published a notice announcing the formation of a partnership with the software community to enhance the quality of software related patents.

The USPTO has also undertaken a number of internal initiatives over the past several years. For example, the USPTO routinely provides its examiners on topics such as non-obviousness and statutory subject matter. In addition, the USPTO has implemented a new quality measurement system that comprehensively evaluates examination quality.

Specifically, the USPTO is seeking inputs on whether the following practices should be used by applicants in order to place the applicants in the best possible place for examination:

A. Clarifying the scope of the claims.

B. Clarifying the meaning of the claim terms in the specification.

The lists of the detailed potential practices are published on the USPTO site (here) and in case you would like to publish comments, the USTO prefers to receive comments via e-mail.

Reference: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-01-15/pdf/2013-00690.pdf

http://www.patentdocs.org/2013/01/uspto-seeks-public-input-on-application-drafting-practices.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PatentDocs+%28Patent+Docs%29

Contributed by: Kartik Raju