On April 15, 2025, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) informed the public that, effective May 13, 2025, the USPTO will be accelerating the process for issuing patents. Currently, the time between Issue Notification and Issue Date averages around three weeks. However, with the present change, the USPTO estimates that this period will now be reduced to two weeks between Issue Notification and Issue Date for the patent. The USPTO states that this change will “allow patent holders to bring their investments to market earlier” and “provide earlier protection for inventions.”
What You Need to Know:
- Beginning May 13, 2025, the USPTO will accelerate the issuance of patents.
- The time between the Issue Notification and Issue Date will now be reduced to two weeks.
- Applicants will now be able to commercialize their inventions sooner and obtain earlier protection for inventions.
- Applicants will now have less time to decide if they wish to file a continuing application after paying the Issue Fee.
At any point in prosecution including the Issue Date, Applicants can file a continuing application claiming priority to the pending parent patent application, as discussed in the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) § 211.01(b), subsection 1. However, no continuing applications claiming priority to the parent application can be filed starting the day after the Issue Date.
In view of the present change, the Applicant will have less time after payment of the Issue Fee to decide whether or not they wish to file a continuing application. In order to ensure copendency, we recommend filing any continuing applications with the USPTO before or along with the payment of the issue fee.
