Unfortunately, there are some Art Units at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that have lower allowance rates than others. And some Art Units have substantially lower allowance rates, making application assignment critically important. The good news is that with some effort and planning it is possible to direct a patent application to a more likely favorable Art Unit within the USPTO, which will substantially raise the odds of a favorable (and cheaper) prosecution.
Classification at the USPTO is still largely a manual process, so substituting a few words with synonyms is highly unlikely to affect your application’s classification. The goal cannot be to attempt trick a computer after the fact by switching out a few words here and there. Instead, thoughtful characterization of the invention to ensure review by a favorable technology center group is the goal.
Join Gene Quinn, President and Founder of IPWatchdog.com, on Thursday, September 20, 2018, for a free webinar discussion on techniques for drafting patent applications to intentionally influence assignment to a particular group of patent examiners within the USPTO. Joining Gene will be patent attorney Megan McLoughlin, Product Director at LexisNexis IP Solutions, and Mark Nowotarski, founder of Surviving Alice ® IP consulting.
Among other things, this webinar will address the following: