The USPTO has updated its examination guidelines concerning obviousness under 35 U.S.C. §103, in light of precedential decisions from the Federal Circuit issued since the United States Supreme Court decision in KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc. The Updated Examination Guidelines were published in the Federal Register yesterday and include additional didactic examples concerning obviousness. …
Category: News
The USPTO’s Interim Guidance For Determining Subject Matter Eligibility For Process Claims
The USPTO has published Interim Guidance for Determining Subject Matter Eligibility for Process Claims in View of Bilski v. Kappos. This Interim Guidance went into effect yesterday, July 27, 2010, supersedes previous guidance on subject matter eligibility, and is to be retroactively applied to all pending applications. The Interim Guidance is available here (in html)…
Welcome To The New And Improved PatentablyDefined!
For those of you who have followed this blog over the years, welcome to version 3.0! This site has been quiet for the past several weeks while it underwent an overhaul, which included both a new, custom theme and a WordPress upgrade. I also used this time to take a break from posting and regain…
The New Electronic Filing System (EFS-Web) Contingency Option
The USPTO has announced a new plan to increase the availability of its patent electronic filing system, EFS-Web, by providing a new contingency option when the primary portal to EFS-Web experiences an unscheduled outage. Previously, the entire EFS-Web system was unavailable to the users during such an outage. The new EFS-Web contingency option will permit…
A Discussion About S-Signatures With Examples
Introduction “S-signatures” have been accepted by the USPTO for several years now. An S-signature is an electronic signature betwen forward slashes and includes any signature made by non-handwritten means (i.e. electronic or mechanical). See MPEP 502.02 and 37 CFR 1.4(d)(2). This type of signature was part of the changes made in the USPTO to support…