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I am at Schipol airport (Amsterdam) and will shortly board a train for the Hague. Tomorrow and the next day I will be at the European Patent Office to speak at the second annual “PCT at the EPO” meeting.
I have heard from a few readers of this blog who will be at the meeting. I look forward to seeing you there.
We all recall the nightmare of having to figure out whether or not to “check the box”. You know the box that I am talking about:
Well, a nice member of our PCT listserv pointed out today that September 16, 2014 is an interesting day for the “check the box” problem. I wonder how many readers of this blog already know why this is?
There are a lot of annoying things about an email that says “see attached letter”. I’ll basically just be ranting in this posting. Feel free to skip it.
I should emphasize first that if somebody is paying my firm to do work, I will cheerfully receive any and all “attached letters” that they wish to send. The non-US patent firm that has sent me dozens of patent applications to be filed in the US can send any email in whatever way they want to sent it.
What I am talking about is the non-US intellectual property firms, and the service providers (annuity services for example) that are receiving money from my firm. These are the people I am complaining about when I say I am annoyed by an email that says “see attached letter”.
Why am I annoyed by this?
From time to time I encounter a client or foreign colleague that asks whether some soon-to-be-filed US patent application ought to be termed a CIP (continuation-in-part) of a previous patent application by the same applicant. The way I look at it, this used to be a good idea but nowadays is rarely if ever a good idea. I hope that folks will post comments with their thoughts about this.
Continue reading “Thinking about calling a US patent application a continuation-in-part”
As a reminder, the European Patent Office will present “PCT at the EPO”, a two-day educational program. This will be Wednesday and Th
ursday, October 1 and 2 at the EPO office at the Hague. One session is “National Phase at the USPTO”. The speakers for that session will be Michael Neas of the USPTO and myself.
This is a unique educational program with a faculty composed of patent office presenters and private practitioners.
The first day of the event will conclude with a panel discussion on key developments in the PCT (I am one of the panel members), followed by a cocktail reception and a networking dinner.
To find out more about this two-day program, or to register, click here.