Amendments to the Rules of Practice for Trials Before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 96 (Tuesday, May 19, 2015)]
[Pages 28561-28566]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-12117]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, Patent and Trademark Office, 37 CFR Part 42, [Docket No. PTO-P-2015-0032], RIN 0651-AD00
Amendments to the Rules of Practice for Trials Before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board
AGENCY: Patent Trial and Appeal Board, United States Patent and Trademark Office, U.S. Department of Commerce.
ACTION: Final rule.
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SUMMARY: This final rule amends the existing consolidated set of rules relating to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office or USPTO) trial practice for inter partes review, post-grant review, the transitional program for covered business method patents, and derivation proceedings that implemented provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (``AIA'') providing for trials before the Office.

DATES: Effective Date: This rule is effective May 19, 2015.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Susan L. C. Mitchell, Lead Administrative Patent Judge by telephone at (571) 272-9797.

To see the complete rule, access http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-05-19/html/2015-12117.htm

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International Registration of Industrial Designs

Message from the USPTO:

The Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs (Hague Agreement) became effective for the United States on May 13, 2015.

It is now possible for United States (U.S.) applicants to file a single international design application either with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or through the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) as an office of indirect filing to obtain protection in a number of countries that are party to the Hague Agreement. In addition, applicants filing international design applications on or after May 13, 2015 will be able to designate the United States for design protection. U.S. design patents resulting from applications filed on or after May 13, 2015 will have a 15-year term from the date of issuance.

The Hague Agreement is an international registration system which offers the possibility of obtaining protection for up to 100 industrial designs in designated member countries and intergovernmental organizations (referred to as "Contracting Parties") by filing a single international application in a single language either directly with the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or indirectly through the office of applicant's Contracting Party.

For more information: http://www.uspto.gov/patent/initiatives/hague-agreement-concerning-international-registration-industrial-designs

European Patent Office Free Webinars

The European Patent Office (EPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office's partner in Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC), has scheduled some upcoming free hour-long webinars specifically timed to be convenient for United States viewers. They will take place at 11:00AM Eastern Time/8:00AM Pacific Time. This shows up on the registration web page as 5:00PM Central European Time.

Webinar Topics

• Introduction to Espacenet June 10, 2015
• Espacenet and Global Dossier June 17, 2015
• Cooperative Patent Classification June 23, 2015
• Federated European Register—Legal Status Information June 25, 2015
• Espacenet and Common Citation Document September 7, 2015
• European Patent Register, Global Dossier and Register Alert September 9, 2015
• Espacenet Advanced September 29, 2015

All webinars are free of charge. The webinars use the WebEx platform.

To register go to www.epo.org/vc.

For more information access https://www.epo.org/learning-events/events/training/patent-information.html or contact pitraining@epo.org .