Its Time For A Comprehensive Review of Your Patent Portfolio
If you are a company with patents and pending patent applications, you should give serious thought to conducting a comprehensive review of your patent portfolio. For more than a year the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been attempting to implement rules which will limit the number and timing of continuation, continuation-in-part and divisional patent applications. This may have a significant effect on those who have patentable subject matter which is disclosed but not currently claimed in their patent applications.
Under current rules, unclaimed subject matter can be claimed in a patent application filed at any time so long as there is at least one pending application which claims priority back to the original disclosure of the technology. Under the new rules, only one continuation may be filed, and any divisional filings must be made during the life of the original application or risk losing the priority claim. This could significantly curtail the ability to claim disclosed but unclaimed technology down the road.
If you have pending patent applications, I would strongly encourage you to discuss the situation with your patent attorney and make sure that you have plans to claim all of the subject matter you want prior to implementation of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's new rules.
Under current rules, unclaimed subject matter can be claimed in a patent application filed at any time so long as there is at least one pending application which claims priority back to the original disclosure of the technology. Under the new rules, only one continuation may be filed, and any divisional filings must be made during the life of the original application or risk losing the priority claim. This could significantly curtail the ability to claim disclosed but unclaimed technology down the road.
If you have pending patent applications, I would strongly encourage you to discuss the situation with your patent attorney and make sure that you have plans to claim all of the subject matter you want prior to implementation of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's new rules.
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