Posts Tagged: "Pre-Appeal Conference"

Are the Pre-Appeal Conference and P3 Hopelessly Rigged? Practice Tips for the Savvy Practitioner

The unadvertised feature is that the Pre-Appeal Conference board is assembled by an administrative assistant in the technology center, but the P3 board is assembled by the SPE. This is a critical difference. With the P3 program, the Office is trying to address an internally perceived problem that they believe they have with the Pre-Appeal Conference, which is the technical knowledge of the third member of the board. The third member of the Pre-Appeal Conference is the first available examiner from any technology center and with any type of technical background. This person is essentially selected at random, and often has no technical competence in the area. With the P3 program, the third person is picked by the SPE. This gives the SPE the ability to stack the deck in their favor, intentionally or not.

10 Years Later – A Look at the Efficacy of the Pre-Appeal Brief Conference Program

For 61% of the non-defective requests, the panel decided that there was an actual issue for appeal, such that the applicant would either need to file an Appeal Brief, reengage the Examiner or abandon the application. For 33% of the non-defective requests, the panel decided that prosecution was to be reopened. For only 6% of requests were the panel decisions that an application was to be allowed.

Strategic Considerations Before Filing and During Early Stages of Patent Prosecution

Under the AIA and through its own initiatives, the USPTO has developed many programs that facilitate the prosecution of applications through the Office. Applicants should consider the usefulness of these programs in any on-going and newly filed U.S. patent applications.