Remember the USPTO proposal that would require patent practitioners to pay an annual fee to maintain their license? The Office officially abandoned the fee for 2009, leaving the future of the fee in limbo. A Federal Register Notice, published on Friday, makes a tangential mention of the fee….suggesting that it might be required in the near future.

Both Dennis Crouch and Stephen Albainy-Jenei have posted excellent summaries of the Tafas v. Doll case. If you’re looking for more information on this complex case – and the uncertain future of the proposed rules that would limit continuations, Requests for Continued Examination, and claims – be sure to check out both the Patent Baristas post and the PatentlyO post.

Over the next several weeks, we’re likely to see introduction of new patent reform legislation in the House and Senate, appointment of a new Director of the Patent and Trademark Office, and a decision from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on the controversial proposed continuation rules. Who says patent law is boring, stuffy, and uneventful?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.