Posts on the Daily Dose of IP blog will return on April 6, 2009. Thanks for reading!

On Friday, the USPTO issued an announcement regarding a "significant number of international applications" filed in the U.S. Receiving Office under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) that were filed with a chosen International Searching Authority (ISA) that is not competent to review the subject matter of the claimed invention. For example, the European Patent Office (EPO) will not act as an ISA for applications having one or more business method claims. In addition, the Australian Patent Office (IP Australia) will not act as an ISA for applications having one or more claims having subject matter set forth in Annex A of the Arrangement between IP Australia and the USPTO (as highlighted in the Official Gazette excerpt link below). As noted by the USPTO, "[t]o avoid significant processing delays, applicants filing international applications naming either the EPO or IP Australia as the ISA should take care to ensure that the application does not contain any claims for which the selected ISA is not competent." Procedurally, if the selected ISA determines, upon receipt of the international application with the U.S. Receiving Office, that it is not competent to act on the application, the application will returned to the U.S. Receiving Office, who will then notify and invite the applicant to select a new ISA. Once selected, the application will be routed to the new ISA for processing. However, this procedure could take quite some time, and may result in the applicant receiving a search report and written opinion later than originally anticipated.

USPTO Announcement (PDF): LINK
Official Gazette Excerpt: LINK

In yesterday’s Federal Register, the USPTO announced that it has extending its comment window regarding deferred examination "to provide interested members of the public with an additional opportunity to view the Webcast before submitting comments to the USPTO." As previously reported in the DDIP blog, on February 12, 2009, the USPTO hosted a roundtable event to discuss the topic of deferred patent examination, providing a select number of public representatives the opportunity to participate and share their views on examination deferrals. The roundtable, now available via webcast on the USPTO website (see link below, noting that no audio is available for the first two minutes of the webcast), was conducted to determine whether or not there was support in the patent community regarding deferred patent applications. The window for providing comments has been extended to May 29, 2009.

March 9, 2009 Federal Register Excerpt: LINK
February 3, 2009 DDIP Article: LINK
January 29, 2009 Federal Register Excerpt: LINK
Deferred Examination Webcast: LINK

Yesterday, the European Patent Office (EPO) announced that the President of the EPO made several decisions on February 26, 2009, concerning the electronic filing of various types of documents at the EPO. A selected number of these decisions, taking effect today (March 5, 2009), are as follows:

Article 1 (Admissibility of electronic filing) - Documents in proceedings under the EPC may be filed with the European Patent Office in electronic form, and European patent applications may also be filed in electronic form with the competent national authorities of those contracting states which so permit.

Article 2 (Filing of international patent applications and other documents) - International (PCT) applications may be filed with the European Patent Office in electronic form, and other documents within the meaning of Rule 89bis.1 and 2 PCT not forming part of the international (PCT) application may be filed in electronic form.

Article 3 (Filing of priority documents) - Articles 1 and 2 shall not apply to priority documents, unless they have been digitally signed by the issuing authority and the signature is accepted by the European Patent Office.

Article 7 (Signature) - Where filed documents require signature, subject to Article 8 this may take the form of a facsimile signature, a text string signature or an enhanced electronic signature. A facsimile signature shall be the facsimile reproduction of the filing person's signature. A text string signature shall be a string of characters, preceded and followed by a forward slash (/), selected by the signatory to provide evidence of his identity and of his intent to authenticate the message in question. An enhanced electronic signature shall be an electronic signature either issued by the European Patent Office or accepted by it.

The complete list of decisions (Articles 1-14) is available at the EPO announcement link below.

EPO Announcement: LINK

Yesterday, the USPTO announced that it once again seeking nominations for potential recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation (NMTI), presented by the President of the United States each year to select individuals for their technological achievements. According to the USPTO press release (link below), "The honorees are selected for their outstanding contributions to the nation's economic, environmental and social well-being through the development and commercialization of technological products, processes and concepts; technological innovation; and development of the Nation's technological manpower." Nominees may include individual inventors, teams of inventors, companies, and/or divisions of companies. Nominations may be made through May 29, 2009, and can be submitted via the second link below.

USPTO Announcement: LINK
NMTI Nomination Webpage: LINK
2007 NMTI Recipients: LINK