I am pleased to announce that I recently participated in a Strafford webinar, “Leveraging USPTO Examiner Count System: Efficiently Prosecuting Patents, Lowering Prosecution Costs.” Due to overwhelming popularity, we scheduled an encore presentation with live Q&A for Tuesday, November 15, 1:00pm-3:00pm EST.
The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) uses a production-based system made up of “counts” to manage the workload of patent examiners. Examiners accrue counts by completing different tasks in the examination process.
For example, the type of action and the timing of those actions are factors in determining an examiner’s “counts.” Since examiners are expected to meet their quotas for production, certain times of the year practitioners often see an increase in examiner activity, i.e., at the end of each quarter. Understanding the USPTO’s inner workings allow patent practitioners to efficiently prosecute patents.
Our panel will provide guidance on leveraging the USPTO Examiner Count System to prosecute patents more effectively. The panel will provide insight into the count system and offer strategies for interacting with patent examiners.
We will review these and other key issues:
- What impact will the number of claims in the application have on the quality of examination in the first office action?
- How can patent counsel use the incentives of the count system to the client’s advantage?
- How and when should patent counsel interact with examiners for effective and efficient prosecution?
