Patent Law Treaties Implementation Act (PLTIA) Discussion

[Brad]

Some major changes this week at the patent office.  You can read more about them here https://patentfile.org/new-patent-rule-changes-may-help-inventors/ and discuss below:

[Blueobelisk]

So basically:

1. 14 months to file for real patent instead of 12 months.
2. No more "claims" are necessary for real patent.
3. If you forgot to pay an upkeep fee they're a little more lenient.

(2) is useless in my opinion. Claims were never needed for even provisional but it's still stupid to not include any claims.

(1) is nice I guess, gives you a little more time. But it has to be "unintentional" lateness. I suppose not gathering funds in time or not finding a buyer won't cut it. I guess this is most useful for people juggling a lot of provisional patents. Won't personally help me much.

(3) It's nice I guess. It must only mean real patents though because you only pay one upfront fee for provisional. I'd hope that by the time you have your real patent you'd be on top of fees but whatever.

Guess I can't complain but nothing worthwhile to me.

[Brad]

You never know.  I am working with a lady now who had her patent expire in 2006 without her knowledge (she is 63, juggling 2 jobs, and had trusted her old patent attorney to keep on top of these things).  Last month she would have been out of luck and not able to recover her old patent, however, now she may be able to revive it since her failure to pay the fees was unintentional.

The extra 2 months for provisionals is also huge.  Many of the people I work with have a lot going on and I frequently see people miss their deadline by a few days or weeks (they just forgot or wrote the date down wrong).  This will really help them.