Petition to make special
Encyclopedia
In United States patent law
United States patent law
United States patent law was established "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" as provided by the United States Constitution. Congress implemented these...

, a petition to make special (PTMS) is a formal request submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...

 (USPTO) asking that a patent application
Patent application
A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for the invention described and claimed by that application. An application consists of a description of the invention , together with official forms and correspondence relating to the application...

 be examined ahead of the other pending applications in the same technological art.

Background and rationale

Normally patent applications in a given technological art are examined in the order that they are filed in under the "first come, first served" principle. The patent office has realized, however, that some invention
Invention
An invention is a novel composition, device, or process. An invention may be derived from a pre-existing model or idea, or it could be independently conceived, in which case it may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social...

s deserve special attention and that patent applications covering these inventions should be examined as quickly as possible. If an invention falls into one of the special categories, the applicant (e.g. inventor) can petition to have it examined early.

A petition to make special can be granted because:
  • the patent will enable manufacture of the invention,

  • the patent is being infringed,

  • one of the inventors is over the age of 65 or is ill to the point where they may not be available to assist in the prosecution of the patent,

  • the head of a government agency requests that the application be made special,

  • the patent relates to certain areas including superconductivity
    Superconductivity
    Superconductivity is a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance occurring in certain materials below a characteristic temperature. It was discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes on April 8, 1911 in Leiden. Like ferromagnetism and atomic spectral lines, superconductivity is a quantum...

    , cancer
    Cancer
    Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

    , HIV/AIDS, and terrorism
    War on Terrorism
    The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...

    ,

  • the applicant wishes to take part in accelerated examination as described below, or

  • several other reasons.

Accelerated examination

Effective in August 2006, the USPTO introduced an accelerated patent examination procedure in an effort to allow inventors a speedy evaluation of an application with a final disposition within 12 months. The procedure requires additional information to be submitted with the application and also includes an interview with the examiner. The first accelerated patent was granted on March 15, 2007 with a 6 month issuance time.

Petitions to make special and business methods

Petitions to make special are particularly important for timely examination of business method patent
Business method patent
Business method patents are a class of patents which disclose and claim new methods of doing business. This includes new types of e-commerce, insurance, banking, tax compliance etc. Business method patents are a relatively new species of patent and there have been several reviews investigating the...

s. Projected delays in examination of business method patents range from 4 to 14 years. This is primarily due to the step change in business method filings after the 1998 State Street Bank decision combined with the difficulty in hiring and training qualified patent examiners in the financial services arts. (e.g. insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...

, banking, etc.)

It is reported that a PTMS for Accelerated Examination can cut the time to get a patent to issue in the business method area from more than 5 years to less than 2. First office actions can issue in as little as 6 months from the filing date of the application and notices of allowable subject matter have issued in just over a year.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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