Proposed patent rules changes

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced that its proposed patent prosecution rules changes have been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the final rules are expected to be published later this summer.  The proposed changes affect continuation applications, requests for continued examination, multiple patent applications having the same filing date, and the number of claims in applications.

The proposed changes would basically make it more difficult to file additional or follow-on patent applications for variations of an invention, more difficult to extend the examination of an application, and more difficult to include numerous claims in applications.  The USPTO believes that these changes would relieve some of its backlog of patent work, but the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law, and other groups oppose the changes.  See here, here, and here.