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Washington—The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will hold the Texas Regional Independent Inventors Conference on September 14-15, 2012 in the Thompson Conference Center located on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.

Washington - The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today published a proposal to amend the rules of practice in patent cases to implement the “first-inventor-to-file” provision of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA).

Washington – The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will update its registration examination and provide new reference materials effective April 12, 2011.  The changes will help ensure that newly registered patent attorneys and agents are fully qualified in the most current patent laws, rules and procedures. All applicants wishing to practice in patent cases before the USPTO must pass the registration exam consisting of 100 multiple choice questions.  The revised exam questions will be based on the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) Edition 8, Revision 8, along with other published USPTO policy and procedure reference materials. Administration of the previous version of the registration examination ceased April 4, 2011. “Patent applicants and examiners will benefit from the updated registration examination because newly registered patent attorneys and agents will have demonstrated familiarity with the most current patent laws, rules a...

Public Input will help improve examination resources and process Washington – The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today introduced two online discussion tools designed to solicit input from the intellectual property (IP) community on how the USPTO can update and improve the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) and Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure (TMEP). “The objective is to ensure that the MPEP and TMEP are as accurate, complete and current as possible and enable practitioners and examiners to find information easily and, get accurate and complete guidance,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos. “This input from users will assist us to further improve these resources as well as our examining processes.”

Post-It® Notes co-inventor Art Fry to give keynote speech Washington, D.C. – The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will hold its annual Independent Inventors Conference on Nov. 4 and 5 at its headquarters in Alexandria, Va. Co-sponsored by the USPTO and the National Inventors Hall of Fame®, the conference is one of many outreach programs offered by the USPTO to assist independent inventors. USPTO Director David Kappos and Art Fry, co-inventor of Post-It® Notes and a 2010 National Inventors Hall of Fame inductee, will be the featured keynote speakers at this year’s conference. Fry will speak at Thursday’s conference luncheon, and Kappos will speak at Friday’s luncheon.

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke gathered with leaders from the public and private sectors to discuss the relationship between copyright policy, creativity and innovation in the Internet economy as part of a symposium co-hosted by the Commerce Department’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. The day-long symposium included discussion of online copyright policy in the United States, specifically the impact of current copyright laws, existing and emerging techniques used to illegally distribute and obtain protected works, the extent and economic impact of infringement, and the role of emerging business models for legitimate distribution of content. During the symposium, it was announced that the Department of Commerce will issue a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) this month seeking public comment on the effectiveness of copy...

Changes will mark the first updates to standards in nearly 25 years Washington – Management at the United States Patent and Trademark Office has been working with representatives of the patent examiners union, the Patent Office Professional Association (POPA), to better align the performance standards for patent examiners with the USPTO’s goals for increasing quality in patent examination and reducing the backlog of pending patent applications, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos announced today. If adopted, the joint task force’s changes would be the first major revision to the patent examiners’ performance appraisal plan (PAP) since 1986. "The changes identified by the joint task force will better align examiner goals with those of the agency, better define expectations and measures for success, and encourage mentoring and training – all while ensuring transparency and clarity," Kappos said. "Along with rece...

Washington – On June 2, 2010, Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Sharon R. Barner and Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks (Rospatent) Director Boris Simonov signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on comprehensive bilateral cooperation during a ceremony at Rospatent. The MOU establishes a general framework for bilateral cooperation between the USPTO and Rospatent with an aim toward improving the administration and effectiveness of intellectual property systems in both offices through exchanges of information and best practices, and promoting the importance of IP for innovation and economic growth.

Exhibit highlights 200 years of food inventions, innovations, and trademarks Grand opening of Inventive Eats: Incredible Food Innovations to be held June 8 from Noon to 1 p.m. Washington, D.C. – Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) David Kappos and Alexandria Mayor Bill Euille will preside at the opening ceremony of this unique, new exhibit on Tuesday, June 8, from 12 Noon to 1 p.m. This is the first major exhibit installation to come to the Hall since it was relocated to Alexandria from Akron, OH in March 2009. Inventive Eats: Incredible Food Innovations highlights how our breakfast cereals, sandwiches, dinner entrees, and more have been transformed by significant events, discoveries and inventions. It features the important role many of the National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees have played in the array of appetizing innovations that have made the food we eat safer, healthier and more e...

Initiative would provide applicants greater control over the speed of patent examination, reduce pendency and enhance work sharing between intellectual property offices Public meeting to be held on July 20; comments welcome WASHINGTON – The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is seeking public comment on a proposed new patent examination initiative that would provide applicants greater control over the speed with which their applications are examined and promote greater efficiency in the patent examination process. The new “Three-Track” program aims both to provide applicants with the timing of examination they need and to reduce pendency of patent applications. “We recognize that the traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ examination timing may not work for all applicants,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos. “By allowing applicants greater control over the timing of examination, t...

Washington—The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced it would eliminate the fee for the petition to participate in Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) programs. The elimination of the PPH petition fee is expected to encourage greater PPH participation by patent applicants. Since 2006, the USPTO has implemented Patent Prosecution Highway programs with a number of patent offices as part of work sharing arrangements to avoid duplication of work among patent offices, and for reducing its own pendency and backlog. Until now, the PPH notices have indicated that a request for participation in the PPH program required the payment of a $130 petition fee.

WASHINGTON – The Commerce Department’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced the expansion to all applicants of its “Project Exchange” program. Under the expanded Project Exchange, which will take effect with the publication of the Federal Register notice in the coming weeks, any applicant with more than one application, filed prior to the inception of the program, currently pending at the USPTO can receive expedited review of one application in exchange for withdrawing an unexamined application. The expanded Project Exchange will give all applicants with multiple filings greater control over the priority in which their applications are examined and enable priority applications to be examined on an expedited basis. By providing incentives for applicants to withdraw unexamined applications that may no longer be important to them, Project Exchange is expected to appreciably reduce the backlog of unexamined patent applications pending before the USPTO. Th...

Washington – The Commerce Department’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), in conjunction with the USPTO-Patent Public Advisory Committee joint task force on quality, is conducting two roundtables to obtain input from organizations and individuals on actions that can improve patent quality and the metrics to be used to measure quality. The roundtables, which will be held in Los Angeles, Calif., on May 10 and Alexandria, Va., on May 18, are open to the public. “Quality patents are critical to the proper functioning of the patent system, and issuing high quality patents is a top priority for the USPTO,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos. “Quality issuances provide certainty in the market and allow businesses and innovators to make informed and timely decisions on product and service development.”

Washington -- The Commerce Department’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will open the current Trademark Law School Clinic Certification Program to admit 20 additional schools into the pilot for the upcoming academic year beginning in fall 2010 through summer 2011. The pilot program allows law students to practice trademark law before the agency under the strict guidance of a law school clinical faculty supervisor. Applications from law schools will be accepted now through Friday, August 6, 2010. Only the first 20 law school clinics demonstrating through their petitions and applications that they meet the qualifications will be accepted into the trademark pilot program. Students in the trademark program can expect to draft and file a trademark application, respond to an office action, or draft and file a brief or reply brief in an appeal to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board from final refusals. Each law school clinical program must meet and maintain the requi...

WASHINGTON – Late yesterday, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke submitted a letter to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing the administration’s view that the draft Manager’s Amendment to existing Senate patent reform legislation will make the reforms more effective upon implementation. Reforming the patent system will accelerate economic growth and job creation, and expand America’s ability to innovate. In the letter, Locke expressed the administration’s position that the draft Manager’s Amendment to S.515, the “Patent Reform Act of 2010,” saying that it “improves the reported bill and incorporates critical elements of patent reform.” At the same time, the administration is supportive of ongoing discussions to resolve differences between the House and the Senate on patent reform. The letter restates the administration’s commitment to work with both houses of Congress to arrive at a final bill for passage this session.

Washington – The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today launched a new “Ombudsman Program” designed to provide patent applicants with more assistance in handling application-processing problems if the normal channels have not been successful. This one-year pilot program is intended to provide applicants with additional resources to ensure application-processing problems are handled in a more efficient way, thereby saving applicants and the Agency both time and resources and improving patent quality. Under this new program, applicants, attorneys or agents who have application-processing concerns, and haven’t been able to get the assistance they need through normal channels in the Technology Center (TC), can contact the ombudsman representative for the TC through the USPTO Web site (www.uspto.gov). The applicant will receive a phone call within one business day for a discussion of the specifics of the issue. From there, the ombudsman represe...

Washington – The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is seeking public comment on a proposed change that would effectively provide a 12‑month extension to the existing 12-month provisional application period. This change would be implemented through the missing parts practice in nonprovisional applications. The proposal would benefit applicants by giving them additional time to determine if patent protection should be sought – enabling them to defer additional fees and enabling applicants to focus efforts on commercialization during this expanded provisional period. The proposal would benefit the USPTO and the public by adding publications to the body of prior art, and by removing from the USPTO’s workload those nonprovisional applications for which the applicants have decided not to pursue examination.

WASHINGTON —Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) David Kappos has unveiled a series of proposals to bring significant change to the examiner “count system” – the methodology for determining the time a patent examiner has to complete a patent examination and how much credit is given for each stage of an examination. The proposal was developed by a task force comprised of senior managers in the Patents organization and leadership of the Patent Office Professional Association (POPA), the union that represents patent examiners. “Secretary Locke directed us to adopt an ambitious agenda to address the significant challenges at USPTO and that’s what we’re doing,” Kappos said. “We’ve worked closely with labor representatives to propose a long-overdue transformation of the count system. We hope to move expeditiously toward adoption of these changes that will benefit examiners, the agency and the IP community ...

>> Register Now! The USPTO’s headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia will be the site of the 14th annual Independent Inventors Conference on November 5-6. The two-day event will include a pre-conference for first time attendees on the evening of November 4. The USPTO’s new director, David Kappos will deliver the keynote address on November 5. As always the conference will provide a wealth of information about patents, trademarks and intellectual property protection. Experts from the USPTO will conduct breakout sessions and be available for one on one meetings. There will also be lots of opportunity for attendees to network during breaks and at the opening night reception. The reception will be co-sponsored by the American Intellectual Property Law Association and the Intellectual Property Owners. The conference is valuable for both novice and experienced inventors. Space is limited so register today. Click here for more information about speakers and the conference.

A meeting of the Trademark Public Advisory Committee will be held on August 28 at USPTO's Headquarters, Madison South Auditorium, Concourse Level, 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA . The public may participate from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. either in person or by webcast. Click here for public meeting agenda and to join in webcast.