If the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is going to implement fee changes in January 2025, we should see a Federal Register Notice detailing the proposed fees soon. The USPTO started this round of fee-setting in April...more
Consider requesting examination of your Canadian patent applications now to avoid potential fees - Last summer, the Government of Canada issued draft regulations introducing claim fees and a continued examination scheme for...more
On June 16, 2020, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released final rules (the “Rules”) implementing changes to how Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) is calculated in certain circumstances in view of Supernus Pharms.,...more
In a case explaining what comprises an “applicant delay” in the context of a patent term adjustment (PTA), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) ruling that the...more
Patentees may obtain additional PTA if the USPTO’s calculation of “applicant delay” includes a period of time during which the patentee could have taken “no identifiable effort” to avoid. However, the onus is entirely on the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) erred in calculating a patent term adjustment (PTA) for a patent covering an oral osmotic form of an antihypertensive drug,...more
On January 23, 2019, the Federal Circuit decided Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. vs. Iancu and shed light on Patent Term Adjustment (PTA). PTA was established by the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 and codified at 35...more
The Situation: The USPTO took a long time to issue Supernus's patent application. Although Supernus would otherwise have been entitled to significant patent term adjustment, the USPTO ruled that the accumulated term should be...more
The Federal Circuit recently held that the USPTO’s calculation of “applicant delays” related to Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) is contrary to the plain language of the PTA Statute....more
This article is second in a series focusing on various issues related to Patent Term Adjustment for U.S. patent applications. While Part 1 is a general overview of how to calculate patent term adjustment (“PTA”), this...more
This article is first in a series focusing on various issues related to Patent Term Adjustment. Part 1 is a general overview of how to calculate patent term adjustment, without addressing the numerous factors that can affect...more
In a June 15, 2015 Federal Register Notice, the USPTO announced the Expedited Patent Appeal Pilot program, which will run until 2,000 ex parte patent appeals are expedited under the program, or until June 20, 2016, whichever...more
The USPTO has published proposed rules for calculating Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) for applications in which a Request for Continued Examination (RCE) has been filed, after the Federal Circuit held in Novartis v. Lee that...more
Recently, in Novartis v. Lee (2013-1160, Fed. Cir., Jan. 15, 2014), the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit revised the method by which the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) calculates...more