Posts Tagged: "patent bar"

USPTO Proposes Rule to Relax Requirements for Practice Before PTAB

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) today that would allow practitioners who are not registered with the USPTO patent bar to act as lead counsel in proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The Office has decided to propose that practitioners must still be represented by a registered practitioner, but to allow parties to “designate a non-registered practitioner as lead counsel and the registered practitioner as back-up counsel.”

A New and Improved and Expanded Patent Bar: It’s About Time

Gene Quinn and I have collectively been teaching patent bar prep for almost 60 years! In that time, we’ve had contact with many career-bound patent people. All had, without exception, a background in the sciences or engineering, or both. The list of qualifications has, over the years, been expanded as technology has expanded. In years gone by, degrees in Biology and Computer Science would not have qualified you to sit for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Registration Exam, but now they do, along with many other intersectional STEM qualifications, including, for the first time, advanced degrees in these disciplines. Good, I say. The more the merrier.

Patent Office Implements Changes to Requirements for Admissions Criteria for Patent Bar

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a Federal Register Notice today implementing the suggestions it received on expanding the patent bar following its October 18, 2022, request for public input on the topic. The USPTO last year requested public comment on two FRNs that attempted to expand opportunities to practice in front of the agency. The Office said at the time it planned to “expand the admission criteria of our patent bar to encourage broader participation and to keep up with the ever-evolving technology and related teachings that qualify someone to practice before the USPTO.”

Moving Toward a Design Patent Bar – Progress in the IP Community

Challenging established processes is a commonly recognized leadership principle. In recent weeks, the emphasis by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on reconsidering and reforming patent bar eligibility, especially with regard to a potential design patent bar, represents a significant challenge to well-established Patent Office procedures. If the health and viability of an organization can be defined in terms of its ability to revisit, revamp and evolve existing rules and procedures, then this initiative, led by Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Kathi Vidal, represents a healthy and viable intellectual property community.

U.S. Embassy Failures, COVID-19 Travel Restrictions, Keep Attorney Working on COVID-19 Technology Out of United States

Surely there can be no greater national interest to the United States than to allow each and every single person working to solve the COVID-19 pandemic to cross our border without issue, especially those who have already earned visas to work in the United States. However, a series of unfortunate events and policies has resulted in an ironic situation in which, in one example, an attorney from Sweden, who has spent significant periods of time within the United States since 2006, cannot return to the states to sit for the patent bar; aid members and clients of her law firm who are needful of her unique skills, including one colleague who is undergoing medical treatment for a serious health condition; or prosecute several patent applications representing some vital advancements in the fight against COVID-19. U.S. Embassy inaction, which is blocking her ability to take the U.S. patent bar, join her colleagues in the U.S. who have mentored her in this field for a year-and-a-half, and work on these COVID-19 patent solutions, arguably threatens the very chance of those inventions and technologies being properly commercialized to benefit everyone in the United States and beyond.