[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 178 (Friday, September 13, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 74927-74928]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-20813]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Patent and Trademark Office
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment
Request; Third-Party Submissions and Protests
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will submit
the following information collection request to the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance in accordance with
the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, on or after the date of
publication of this notice. The USPTO invites comments on this
information collection renewal, which helps the USPTO assess the impact
of its information collection requirements and minimize the public's
reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the
Federal Register on July 8, 2024 during a 60-day comment period (89 FR
55924). This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public
comment.
Agency: United States Patent and Trademark Office, Department of
Commerce.
Title: Third-Party Submissions and Protests.
OMB Control Number: 0651-0062.
Needs and Uses: The United States Patent and Trademark Office
(USPTO) is required by 35 U.S.C. 131 et seq. to examine an application
for patent and, when appropriate, issue a patent. The provisions of 35
U.S.C. 122(c), 122(e), 131, and 151, as well as 37 CFR 1.290 and 1.291,
limit the ability of a third-party to have information entered and
considered in, or to protest, a patent application pending before the
USPTO.
37 CFR 1.290 provides a mechanism for third parties to submit to
the USPTO for consideration and inclusion in the record of a patent
application, any patents, published patent applications, or other
printed publications of potential relevance to the examination of the
application.
A third-party submission under 37 CFR 1.290 may be made in any
nonprovisional utility, design, and plant application, including any
continuing application. A third-party submission under 37 CFR 1.290
must include a concise description of the asserted relevance of each
document submitted, and must be submitted within a certain statutorily
specified time period.
37 CFR 1.291 permits a member of the public to file a protest
against a pending application. Protests pursuant to 37 CFR 1.291 are
supported by a separate statutory provision from third-party
submissions under 37 CFR 1.290. As a result, there are several
differences between protests and third-party submissions, as explained
in the table below.
Table 1--Comparison of Third-Party Submissions and Protests
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Third-party
Comparison submission Protest
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Statute/Regulation........ 35 U.S.C. 122(e), 37 35 U.S.C. 122(c), 37
CFR 1.290. CFR 1.291.
Content................... Printed publications. Printed publications
and any facts or
information adverse
to patentability.
Remarks................... Concise description Concise explanation
of relevance of the relevance
(limited to a (allows for
concise description arguments against
of each document's patentability).
relevance).
Timing.................... The earlier of-- (1) Prior to the date
(A) the date of a of Pre-Grant
notice of allowance; Publication or the
or (B) the later of-- date of a notice of
. allowance, whichever
(i) 6 months after occurs first, or (2)
the date of Pre- accompanied by
Grant Publication, written consent of
or. the applicant and
(ii) the date of the prior to the date of
first rejection of a notice of
any claim during the allowance.
examination of the
application for
patent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For example, 37 CFR 1.291 permits the submission of information
that is not permitted in a third-party submission under 37 CFR 1.290.
Specifically, 37 CFR 1.291 provides for the submission of information
other than publications, including any facts or information adverse to
patentability. Unlike the concise explanation of the relevance required
for a preissuance submission under 37 CFR 1.290, which is limited to a
description of a document's relevance, the concise explanation for a
protest under 37 CFR 1.291 allows for arguments against patentability.
Additionally, the specified time period for submitting a protest
differs from the time period for submitting third-party submissions and
is impacted by whether the protest is accompanied by the written
consent of the applicant.
This information collection covers the items used by the public to
submit information and protests regarding patent applications to the
USPTO. This information collection is necessary so that the public can
contribute to the quality of issued patents. The USPTO will use this
information, as appropriate, to assist in evaluating the patent
application as it moves through the patent examination process.
Forms: (SB = Specimen Book).
PTO/SB/429 (Third-Party Submission Under 37 CFR 1.290)
Type of Review: Extension and revision of a currently approved
information collection.
Affected Public: Private sector.
Respondent's Obligation: Required to obtain or retain benefits.
Frequency: On occasion.
Estimated Number of Annual Respondents: 1,033 respondents.
Estimated Number of Annual Responses: 1,033 responses.
Estimated Time per Response: The USPTO estimates that the responses
in this information collection will take the public approximately 10
hours to complete. This includes the time to gather the necessary
information, create the document, and submit the completed item to the
USPTO.
Estimated Total Annual Respondent Burden Hours: 10,330 hours.
Estimated Total Annual Respondent Non-hourly Cost Burden: $153,686.
This information collection request may be viewed at
www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view Department of
Commerce, USPTO information collections currently under review by OMB.
Written comments and recommendations for this information
collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of
this notice on the following website, www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. Find this particular information collection by selecting
``Currently under 30-day Review-Open for Public Comments'' or by using
the search function and entering either the title of the information
collection or the OMB Control Number, 0651-0062.
Further information can be obtained by:
Email: [email protected]. Include ``0651-
0062 information request'' in the subject line of the message.
Mail: Justin Isaac, Office of the Chief Administrative
Officer, United
[[Page 74928]]
States Patent and Trademark Office, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA
22313-1450.
Justin Isaac,
Information Collections Officer, Office of the Chief Administrative
Officer, United States Patent and Trademark Office.
[FR Doc. 2024-20813 Filed 9-12-24; 8:45 am]
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