The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced earlier today that effective May 3, 2013, it will update the USPTO Rules of Professional Conduct that govern practitioners who practice before the USPTO. These new USPTO ethics rules are based on the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which were published in 1983, substantially revised in 2003 and updated through 2012.
The Federal Register Notice explains that currently there are approximately 41,000 registered patent practitioners, with at least 75% of the roster of patent practitioners being attorneys who are admitted in one or more States. Given that the ABA Model Rules have been adopted by 49 states and the District of Columbia, nearly all of the attorneys registered to practice at the USPTO are already professionally governed by ethics rules modeled from the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Thus, this change should not be considered to be a substantive change to the rules that apply to patent attorneys.Indeed, the Federal Register Notice explains that this USPTO efforts “benefits and reduces costs for most practitioners by clarifying and streamlining their professional responsibility obligations.” Of course, for those who are patent agents, however, the rules will be different.
What follows are the decisions from April and May 2012. In this time period in 2012 at the OED the Office found themselves dealing with a patent attorney that accepted referrals from an invention promotion company, a patent attorney that didn’t notify a client of an abandoned application, a trademark attorney that submitted false statements in three petitions to revive abandoned applications and a reciprocal discipline involving negligence associated with maintaining a Trust Account.
On February 5, 2013, I will be in New York City giving a presentation on ethics at the 7th Annual Patent Law Institute. My lecture will be revisited in San Francisco, California on March 19, 2013, an event that will be webcast live.
In addition to discussing the impact of the America Invents Act on ethics, specifically from a malpractice standpoint, I will also discuss the enforcement efforts of the Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) during 2012.
So far I have written the following articles in Ethics & OED series:
After starting with January and then fearing I would run out of time as I marched forward through all 48 disciplinary actions taken by OED during 2o12, I decided to start at the end of the year and work my way backwards. There were no reported decisions in September 2012, so that was an easy month to handle.
In addition to discussing the impact of the America Invents Act on ethics, specifically from a malpractice standpoint, I will also discuss the enforcement efforts of the Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) during 2012.
So far I have written the following articles in Ethics & OED series:
An odd order sequencing I know, but with great energy and certainty that I wouldn’t run out of time I set out to ambitiously review the 48 disciplinary actions taken by OED during 2o12. Then as the calendar started to no longer be an alley I thought that perhaps I should work my way backwards.
With this in mind, what follows is discussion of the two disciplinary proceedings undertaken by the USPTO during the months of July and August 2012. There were no OED disciplinary decisions from September 2012.
I will be speaking at the 7th Annual Patent Law Institute sponsored by the Practising Law Institute live from New York City on February 4-5, 2013, and live from San Francisco, CA on March 18-19, 2013, with the San Francisco location also being webcast. My topic this year is ethics, and those who attend my presentation live or via webcast will earn 1 ethics CLE credit. In addition to discussing the impact of the America Invents Act on ethics, specifically from a malpractice standpoint, I will also discuss the enforcement efforts of the Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) during 2012.
What follows is discussion of the two disciplinary proceedings undertaken by the USPTO during the month of October 2012. First up is a situation where the USPTO went after an attorney in California who engaged in representation of trademark clients. Richard Gibson was not a patent practitioner, yet OED went after him for violation of various ethical rules, which is something recently new for the USPTO to do. The second case is a case where a patent practitioner was caught up in a sting operation. The sting was searching for adults soliciting sex from minors in Seattle, Washington.
I will be speaking at the 7th Annual Patent Law Institute sponsored by the Practising Law Institute live from New York City on February 4-5, 2013, and live from San Francisco, CA on March 18-19, 2013, with the San Francisco location also being webcast. My topic this year is ethics, which will give me at least several CLE credits for teaching this ethics component and give those who attend live or via webcast 1 CLE credit hour of ethics.
I will be discussing some ethical issues raised by the America Invents Act, but when giving an ethics lecture I also like to take a look at some of the things that the Office of Enrollment & Discipline has been doing with respect to practitioner discipline. I did this several years ago, see Patent Office Disciplinary Actions and Lack Thereof, and more recently I looked at a handful of cases from January 2012, see, Ethics and OED 2012.
Over the coming weeks I will be publish more summaries of some of the more interesting disciplinary matters before the Office of Enrollment and Discipline during 2012. What follows are cases from November 2012 and December 2012. My goal is to work my way backwards and summarize as many decisions from 2012 prior to my PLI ethics presentation as I can.
Next year I will be speaking at the 7th Annual Patent Law Institute sponsored by the Practising Law Institute. The event, like in previous years, will be bi-coastal. We will be live from New York City on February 4-5, 2013, and live from San Francisco, CA on March 18-19, 2013, with the San Francisco location also being webcast. My topic will be ethics, which will provide the all important and highly sought after ethics CLE credit.
In addition to discussing ethical issues raised by the America Invents Act, such as the new statute of limitations and avoiding catastrophic malpractice issues with the shift to first to file, I also always like to do a rundown of recent OED disciplinary proceedings. The last time I did this was several years ago. See Patent Office Disciplinary Actions and Lack Thereof.
With this in mind, over the coming weeks and months leading up to the 7th Annual Patent Law Institute, I will be publishing a summary of the disciplinary proceedings before the Office of Enrollment and Discipline at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. What follows starts with the first Order of 2012.
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The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced earlier today that effective May 3, 2013, it will update the USPTO Rules of Professional Conduct that govern practitioners who practice before the USPTO. These new USPTO ethics rules are based on the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which were published in 1983, substantially revised in 2003 and updated through 2012.
I will be presenting the ethics lecture at the 7th Annual Patent Law Institute sponsored by the Practising Law Institute live from 
I will be speaking at the 7th Annual Patent Law Institute sponsored by the Practising Law Institute live from 
I will be speaking at the 7th Annual Patent Law Institute sponsored by the Practising Law Institute live from 
Next year I will be speaking at the 7th Annual Patent Law Institute sponsored by the Practising Law Institute. The event, like in previous years, will be bi-coastal. We will be live from 
