The United States Patent and Trademark Office will publish in the Federal Register new rules that will allow the agency to continue to make the patent examination process more effective and efficient by encouraging applicants to use greater precision in describing the scope of their inventions. The new rules will be effective on November 1, 2007.
Under the new rules, applicants may file two new continuing applications and one request for continued examination as a matter of right.
Also, under the new rules, each application may contain up to 25 claims, with no more than five of them independent claims, without any additional effort on the part of the applicant.
Beyond these thresholds, however, the new rules require applicants to show why an additional continuation is necessary or to provide supplementary information relevant to the claimed invention to present additional claims.
The USPTO beleives that application quality will be improved, enhancing the quality and timeliness of both the examination process and issued patents. We shall see.
The new rules are available here .
Photo by USPTO.
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