Category: Patents

Last week I blogged that I was astonished (in a nice way) to learn that the Schwegman firm will be providing in-person continuing legal education free of charge in a few weeks in San Jose, California.  Schwegman will actually be providing two days of free training — a first day about best practices for patent docketing, and a second day about the Patent Cooperation Treaty.  The patent docketing class will be all day on February 22 and the PCT class will be all day on February 23.

Schwegman is not, however, the only firm doing such nice things.  McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP, perhaps better known as MBHB, has offered many free-of-charge continuing legal education webinars.  I have just now signed up to attend their most recently announced webinar, which will take place on February 22.  The title is Patent-Eligibility Update: Abstract Ideas in the Federal Circuit and USPTO.  To learn more about the webinar, or to sign up, click here.

OPLF has offered some free CLE webinars in the past, and, inspired by Schwegman and MBHB, we will offer some free CLE webinars in the near future.  If you want to be sure of hearing about the free CLE webinars when they get scheduled, be sure to subscribe to this blog.

Who would like to join me in complimenting Schwegman and MBHB in their public-spirited activities?  Post a comment below, and share this blog article with someone whom you know at each of the two firms.

Here are some firms that were ranked in last year’s Utility Patent Tote Board, but which have not yet responded for this year’s Utility Patent Tote Board.

If you know somebody at one of these firms, you might want to pass this along to them.  The response date has been extended from January 20, 2017 to January 23, 2017.  To respond, click here.

Ever since March 16, 2013 there has been a profound asymmetry in the manner in which check-the-box mistakes could be corrected by the practitioner.  For more than three years now, it has been easy (according to USPTO’s rules) to correct a mistake if it happens in one direction, and impossible to correct the mistake if it happens in the opposite direction.  USPTO has now announced a policy that is intended to reduce this profound asymmetry. Continue reading “USPTO addresses asymmetry in the correction of check-the-box mistakes”

Now and again we will receive instructions from a client (or foreign patent firm) to incur no further expense in a particular patent application.  In such a patent application, what sometimes happens later is that we receive an Office Action.  This prompted me to share a few thoughts about whether the applicant should file an Express Abandonment in such a case.

Continue reading “Why aren’t there more express abandonments?”