Posts Tagged: "Federal Register Notice"

The U.S. Copyright Office issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register today offering a new group registration option for frequently updated news websites. According to the Federal Register Notice (FRN), the option would allow online news sites to register “a group of updates to a news website as a collective work with a deposit composed of identifying material representing sufficient portions of the works, rather than the complete contents of the website.”

One might think that we had enough crises already without creating a new one, but apparently that’s not the case. To much fanfare, the Biden Administration unveiled its long awaited “guidelines” for agency use of the march in rights provision of the Bayh-Dole Act. Ironically, it started this exercise just as it had joined every other administration in dismissing attempts to misuse the statute as a pretext for the government to micro-manage the price of a successfully commercialized government funded invention.

The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) and the Department of Commerce today published a draft version of a Federal Register Notice seeking comments on a proposed framework for deciding whether and when to exercise march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act that would significantly broaden the criteria for compulsory licensing of patented technology developed with federal funding. While Bayh-Dole contemplates march-in rights, the law strictly limits the situations in which they can be exercised and does not make any reference to pricing as a criterion for marching in. But under the proposed framework, an agency may consider “[a]t what price and on what terms has the product utilizing the subject invention been sold or offered for sale in the U.S.” and whether “the contractor or licensee [has] made the product available only to a narrow set of consumers or customers because of high pricing or other extenuating factors”.

Today, the U.S. Patent and Trademark (USPTO) published a pair of documents in the Federal Register regarding due dates on new document formatting requirements for patent applications filed with the Office. The USPTO’s decision to delay the implementation of new filing fees for non-DOCX patent applications highlights issues that the agency has had in complying with the terms of the Paperwork Reduction Act by failing to properly represent to the Office of Management and Budget the burden that the USPTO’s proposed rule changes will have on agency stakeholders.

Following U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal’s blog post in July explaining that she will be revisiting the Office’s 2019 subject matter eligibility guidance, the USPTO today announce a September 1 Federal Register Notice requesting public comments on the existing guidance. The Notice explained that “given the overwhelming interest in the guidance, the USPTO will now accept feedback via the Federal eRulemaking Portal until October 15, 2022.”

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today announced in an unpublished Federal Register Notice that it has established an administrative process for investigating submissions filed with the USPTO in trademark matters that appear to violate the Trademark Rules of Practice. The announcement comes as part of the USPTO’s broader effort to improve the integrity of the U.S. trademark register amid a surge in fraudulent filings, largely from China.

Following a Request for Comments in March 2021, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) yesterday published a Federal Register Notice updating the General Requirements Bulletin (GRB) for admission to the registration exam to practice in patent cases before the Office. The Notice indicates that the USPTO considered all comments and based on the “overwhelming” support for the proposals is moving forward with implementing the changes. The Notice says the Office received 32 comments in response to the March request for comments.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or Office) earlier today published a Request for Comments in the Federal Register asking for public input into proposed changes to the General Requirements Bulletin for Admission to the Examination for Registration to Practice in Patent Cases Before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (GRB). The Office is considering changing the criteria applicable in ways that would streamline the process for both applicants and the Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED), the office within the USPTO tasked with administering the Patent Bar Exam and implementing the rules pertaining to admission to practice before the Office.