Posts Tagged: "patent filing date"

The notable changes in the PLTIA to implement the PLT can be generally broken down into four major categories, although there are all kinds of nuance as you probably could have guessed. Nevertheless, the categories are: (1) Changes pertaining to a patent application filing date; (2) changes pertaining to the revival of abandoned applications and acceptance of delayed maintenance fee payments; (3) changes pertaining to the restoration of the right of priority application to a foreign application or the benefit of a provisional application; and (4) changes to require that an application be in condition for examination within eight months of filing or lose patent term adjustment.

On Wednesday, December 5, 2012, the House of Representatives passed two bills that are now await President Obama’s signature. The bill — S. 3486— implements both the Patent Law Treaty (PLT) and the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs. The U.S. Senate previously passed the same bill in the same form on September 22, 2012. Thus, the remaking of U.S. patent law and patent practice continues, and we will see more rulemaking coming from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Contrary to popular belief, things are getting much better in business methods. Applications filed in 1999 had prosecution times of over 10 years (lower green arrow). These and subsequent applications jammed up the system leading to excessive delays to first office actions. Applications filed in 2004, for example, had delays to first office action of 6 years (middle red arrow). Sometime around 2010, however, things started to improve. A lot more patents started issuing and the delays to first office action dropped to around 2 years (upper red arrow). That’s not to say that it’s easy to get a patent in business methods, but at least examiners and applicants are making much better progress in reaching agreement on allowable claims in a reasonable amount of time.