By: Sean Detweiler The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) is falling behind in their review of trademark applications. Since the end of 2018, the average time between an application for trademark registration being filed and the Examining Attorney reviewing the application and issuing a first action indicating whether the mark is allowable has …
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By: Stacey Friends and Sean Detweiler For the first time in three years, The USPTO is setting and adjusting Trademark and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board fees through its Final Rule, effective January 2, 2021. The goals of the fee increases, as stated by the USPTO, are to: Enhance the quality of examinations Achieve optimal examination times Invest in modernizing USPTO systems and infrastructure …
By: Sean Detweiler The USPTO recently announced that it is accepting petitions to accelerate the timeline for examination of new trademark applications for trademarks used to identify certain COVID-19 medical products and services (see USPTO: Relief Available to Trademark and Service Mark Applicants in View of the COVID-19 Outbreak: Petitions to Prioritize the Initial Examination of …
By: Stanley F. Chalvire On May 7, 2020, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced the COVID-19 Prioritized Examination Pilot Program, under which the USPTO will grant requests for prioritized examination to qualifying patent applicants without payment of the fees typically associated with prioritized examination. The goal of prioritized examination is to provide …
Continue reading USPTO Announces COVID-19 Prioritized Examination Pilot Program
By: William R. Schmidt On March 31, 2020, the USPTO announced extensions to the time allowed to file certain patent- and trademark-related documents and to pay certain required fees. In brief, some deadlines due between 3/27/20 and 4/30/20 (inclusive) are extendable for 30 days upon submission of a request and appropriate statement attributing the delay …
Continue reading USPTO Extends Some Patent and Trademark Deadlines
The Radio Entrepreneurs, a show that provides advice, information and connections for entrepreneurs, service providers and established companies, interviewed Morse trademark partner Stacey Friends. Stacey discusses trademark clearance, registration, and enforcement for large and small companies, as well as the recent USPTO rule change regarding specimens of use, based on the sudden influx of trademark applications from China. …
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Following the Federal Circuit’s decision in Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. West-Ward Pharmaceuticals, 887 F.3d 1117 (Fed. Cir. 2018), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a memo to the patent examination corps clarifying the patent eligibility of certain method of treatment claims. In particular, the USPTO’s guidance clarifies that method of treatment claims which …
Continue reading Improved Forecast for IP Harvest: Gathering Seeds from USPTO Memo on Vanda
A common frustration for patent applicants is the incredibly slow pace at which an application proceeds from filing to receipt of a substantive examination report to allowance. On average it takes 15.7 months for a patent application to receive even a first substantive examination report! The Patent Office has recognized this problem and implemented several initiatives which …
100 years ago today, inventor Alexander Samuelson was granted the design patent for the bottle that would come to be known as the iconic Coca-Cola® bottle. The design patent lasted 14 years and then expired, but obviously the design has lived on, and is now considered protected under trade dress laws. The term of design patents filed …
By: Tom Dunn On January 17, 2015, the USPTO reduced certain trademark filing fees and introduced a new electronic application filing option. The fee for both the TEAS Plus application and the TEAS Regular application are reduced by $50. The TEAS Reduced Fee (TEAS RF) application is a new filing option, and one may still …
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