The USPTO is implementing a PCT Informed Examination Request (PIER) Pilot Program to assess the inventory and efficiency impacts of requiring an applicant to request examination in view of applicable Patent Cooperation Treaty international phase work products. The USPTO will select certain national stage patent applications for the program and, if selected, will issue a requirement for information referencing the applicable international phase work products and requiring applicant to indicate whether applicant opts to: proceed with examination, delay examination, or expressly abandon the application. The USPTO expects that requiring applicants to provide information upon review of international phase work products present in the application file will contribute to efforts to reduce inventory and pendency and improve quality.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is announcing a new process for permitting a patent owner to provide information useful for the USPTO to make a determination of whether an ex parte request for reexamination establishes a Substantial New Question (SNQ) of patentability. The new process allows for patent owners to provide information on why an argued teaching(s) in a proposed SNQ presented in a request for reexamination would not be considered important to a reasonable examiner.

As part of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) continued efforts to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into agency operations—first with the Artificial Intelligence Search Automated Pilot Program, or “ASAP!,” for patent prior art references followed by the Trademark Classification Agentic Codification Tool, or “Class ACT,” for trademark searching—the USPTO today announced the first-of-its-kind agentic AI tool to assist in patent eligibility determinations under 35 U.S.C. §101.