Posts Tagged: "Collaborative Search and Examination pilot"

Earlier today, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that it will no longer accept requests to participate in the IP5 Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Collaborative Search and Examination (CS&E) pilot and will no longer accept new international applications. The reason for the USPTO no longer accepting these requests is because the Office has reached the total number of applications it can accept. The operational phase of the CS&E pilot went into effect on July 1, 2018 and was established for a two-year period running through June 30, 2020. During this two-year operational phase, each of the International Searching Authorities (ISAs) participating were quite limited with respect to the number of applications they could accept, which accounts for the USPTO’s inability to accept any additional applications with a full six months remaining in pilot program.