Posts Tagged: "Cooperative Patent Classification System"

A Look Inside Patent Processes at the USPTO: Effects of the Pandemic and Upcoming Changes

On Thursday, July 30, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Commissioner for Patents Drew Hirshfeld and other USPTO staff updated attendees of IPWatchdog and LexisNexis’ webinar, “A Conversation with the Commissioner: A Look Inside Patent Processes at the USPTO,” on issues such as staffing, reopening plans, and upcoming new processes for routing patent applications.

A Better Way to File Patent Applications

The PathWays system is designed to help applicants predict which art units an application is likely to be filed before the application is even filed. A unique semantic search algorithm compares user submitted text to weighted key words derived from an exhaustive collection of application documents clustered in each USPTO art unit.

An Exclusive Interview with USPTO Director Michelle Lee

There were no topics ruled out of bounds for this 30 minute interview, not even the Supreme Court’s recent decision to accept cert. in Cuozzo, although as an attorney myself I know better than to ask questions that would have certainly provoked a polite “no comment” response in the face of ongoing litigation. Nevertheless, our conversation was wide ranging. We discussed the release of the Copyright White paper, which among other things recommends expanding eligibility for statutory damages in copyright infringement actions. We also discussed Lee’s recent visit to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the power outage that brought down USPTO electronic filing systems, the Office’s patent quality initiative, the new patent classification system, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and more.