United States Patent and Trademark Office

Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria, in 1914, Hedy Lamarr left school when she was 15 to become an actress. But she had a passion for inventing.

Kwolek led polymer research at DuPont until her retirement in 1986. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1994 and received the National Medal of Technology in 1999, among many other honors.

In an ex parte appeal, an applicant seeks to demonstrate to a three-judge panel that the examiner erred in rejecting the claimed invention and that the rejection should be reversed. In this way, the PTAB functions as a quality control check on examination to ensure that examiners make correct patentability decisions.

The landmark America Invents Act produced a tribunal within the USPTO that was also unprecedented—the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Formed on Sept. 16, 2012, the PTAB is designed to streamline the process for determining issues of patentability. Its predecessor tribunal was called the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI).

These were all hallmarks of the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), which celebrates its 10th anniversary on September 16. The legislation, signed into law by then-President Obama, included some of the most significant reforms to U.S. patent law since 1836.

The woman dubbed “Lady Edison” in the 1930s received 49 U.S. patents and was responsible for at least 100 inventions.

Molly Kocialski, director of the USPTO’s Rocky Mountain Regional Office, reached behind a screen during an interview with Gitanjali on the first day of the USPTO’s recent Invention-Con 2021. She presented her with a beautifully framed display that people three, four, and five times her age would love to have.

Intellectual property (IP) is essential in protecting that identity, but there is much the general public does not realize about its importance. IP violations can jeopardize USOPC’s essential sponsorships and licensing relationships.

The ebullient Dr. Free, who died May 1 at age 98, ultimately co-developed the revolutionary at-home dip-and-read glucose test to diagnose diabetes and monitor blood sugar that has been used by millions of people worldwide.

Its Patents Ombudsman Program provides assistance to applicants and attorneys throughout the application process, including during initial filing, patent examination, and post-examination. Applicants receive help when the normal processing has stalled.

Now you can file patent application-related documents in this word-processing file format through EFS-Web, Private PAIR, and Patent Center. To improve application quality and efficiency, the USPTO will transition to DOCX for all filers on Jan. 1, 2022. PDFs will continue to be an option; however, a non-DOCX surcharge fee will be effective on that date.

As the pandemic persisted through early 2021, April was another healthy month—which required the Office to continue its aggressive campaign to address filing backlogs that started in late 2020. “At first, filings were declining, but since last summer the growth in filings has been unprecedented,” said Gooder.