New Expedited Pilot Program to Handle Appeals. The USPTO has announced a new pilot program to expedite appeals pending before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The goal of the Expedited Patent Appeal Pilot is to reduce the backlog of pending appeals, while also allowing applicants to prioritize their pending appeals. Many technology centers have average appeals pendency greater than 25 months. To accomplish these goals, the program allows an applicant with multiple pending appeals to expedite one appeal in exchange for withdrawing another pending appeal. The appeal to be withdrawn may be an appeal in an ex parte reexamination. However, given the special dispatch already accorded ex parte reexamination proceedings, including appeals, appeals in ex parte reexaminations are not eligible to be granted additional special status under the Pilot Program.
To qualify, a certification and petition must be filed through EFS-Web in the application for which special status is sought. The appeal to be made special must have a docketing notice mailed no later than June 19, 2015 and there must not be a request for an oral hearing, or any such request must be withdrawn without a refund. The petition must include a request to withdraw the other appeal for which a docketing notice was mailed no later than June 19, 2015 and which has not yet been taken up for decision. Both applications involved must be owned by the same party as of June 19, 2015, or must name at least one common inventor. Finally, the petition must be signed by a registered practitioner who has a power of attorney or authority to act on both applications involved. The petition fee of $400.00 is waived for all petitions to enter the Pilot.
The special status accorded any application under the Pilot Program will end after the decision on appeal. It is intended for a decision to be made on each petition within 2 months and for a decision on the appeal to be made within 4 months of special status being granted. The program will run until June 20, 2016, or until 2,000 petitions have been accepted.
source: Maier & Maier, PLLC
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