regulation
Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary
Welcome to 2009!
For the first post of the New Year, I thought I’d break tradition a bit. Instead of looking forward and listing all the things I’m hoping for in 2009, I’ve decided to look backward and commemorate an anniversary.
Cross your fingers - Bush administration set to issue twenty ‘highly contentious’ rules in final weeks
Most outgoing Presidential administrations push through a few regulations in the final weeks of their tenure in a last ditch effort to exert their influence on federal law. We had reason to believe the Bush administration was different, though - way back in May, Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten issued instructions that final versions of such last ditch regulations should be issued no later than November 1, 2008.The Bolten memo is apparently set to be ignored, though.
The practitioner maintenance fee and the promise that should not have been made
In the surprise final rule that gave birth to the new (and terribly-named) Practitioner Maintenance Fee, the Patent and Trademark Office promised us that the fees it collects through the new rule won’t be diverted for other purposes. The Office can’t rightfully make this promise, though, as long as a permanent fix to fee diversion remains a dream.
The practitioner maintenance fee - a necessary development that carries significant concerns
Today, the Patent Office published a Final Rule indicating that it will now levy an annual “practitioner maintenance fee” on all patent practitioners registered to practice before it. In my earlier post on the rule, I expressed my initial thought as “it’s about time.” Here’s the explanation I promised.
Patent Office to assess practitioner maintenance fees
The United States Patent and Trademark Office today published a Final Rule in the Federal Register that levies a ‘practitioner maintenance fee’ on attorneys and agents recognized to practice before it in patent cases. The new rule requires all registered patent practitioners to pay an annual fee to maintain their professional association with the agency.
The curious case of the new rules timeline
I recently noticed the strange timeline that has developed for the controversial continuation and claim limit rules promulgated by the Patent and Trademark Office (and currently subject to a permanent injunction via Tafas v. Dudas).
Consider these events:
Current PTO administration will not make proposed IDS and Markush rules final
AIPLA is reporting that Margaret Focarino, USPTO Deputy Commissioner for Patent Operations, announced at its recent Annual Meeting in Washington, DC that the proposed rules relating to Information Disclosure Statements and alternative claim language (Markush claiming) will not be published as final rules by the current administration.
PTO spokeswoman - invention must be ‘very innovative’ to be patentable
Fortune Small Business recently ran “A guide to what you can (and can’t) patent” as a response to a question posed by a reader regarding the patentability of “an idea for a website.”
In an attempt to get the best information for its audience, Fortune went straight to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Good idea, right?
I’m not so sure.
Dudas: First quarter allowance rate at about 44%
Jon Dudas held a Q&A with the media this morning to discuss the recently-issued Bush administration letter of opposition (.pdf) to the Senate version of The Patent Reform Act of 2007 (S.1145).
I was able to participate on the call and will post an analysis soon, but wanted to push this tidbit out quickly:
In his opening [...]
New Rules Injunction - A serious wound to the newly activist and arrogant Patent and Trademark Office
Our Patent and Trademark Office has taken a decidedly activist bent over recent years, single-handedly elevating itself from patent system administrator to patent policy maker. Today’s injunction against the new rules is the first serious wound inflicted on this new animal, and now we must all wait to see if it’s a mortal one…or [...]
