As the nation continues to mourn the loss of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we would like to recognize Justice Ginburg”™s dedication to preserving intellectual property rights.

Decisions related to utility patents, design patents, and trademarks are reviewed.

The USPTO is required to extend or reduce the 20-year patent term from the application filing date when the delay was caused by the USPTO under the patent term adjustment (PTA) system created by the U.S. Congress. The PTA also accounts for the Applicant”™s delay and reduces the PTA term (but not the original 20-year patent term) if any PTA term is granted.

The USPTO recently released a 2020 update regarding U.S. women inventor-patentees, incorporating three years of new data and nearly one million issued patents to their previous 2016 report. The information was obtained via PatentsView, a free database supported by the USPTO Office of the Chief Economist.            

Notices of Allowance (NOA) mailed by the USPTO between September 9th and September 15th may list an incorrect issue fee amount that mistakenly incorporated the new fee rule. The new rule is effective October 2nd, 2020 and will only be reflected in Notices of Allowance sent on or after that date. In each affected case, the USPTO will mail a corrected NOA. The corrected NOA will contain the correct issue fee and reset the time period for payment. The USPTO will reach out to those who have already paid the issue fee with further guidance.