The USPTO’s proposed three track system seems headed for implementation. High priority cases (Track One) that incur a fee of $4,000 per application give applicants the opportunity for prioritized examination of a patent within 12 months of its filing date.
Track One cases have some requirements:
- the proposed fee of $4,000 for each application (to recover the full cost of resources necessary to prevent the delay of other, non-prioritized applications);
- limits on the number of claims to four independent claims and 30 total claims;
- application filing through the USPTO’s electronic filing system (EFS-Web); and other such requirements.
During the program’s first year, the USPTO plans to limit the number of applications in the program to 10,000 to ensure that it can meet the 12-month goal.
For small entities, the USPTO is working to offer a fifty percent discount on any filing fee associated with Track One, as it does with many other standard processing fees. The patent reform legislation recently passed by the U.S. Senate would enable the USPTO to set its own fees and thereby extend this discount to small entity applicants.
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