The US Patent & Trademark Office has extended from December to September its After Final Pilot program to give Patent Examiners more time to review patent applications after a "Final" rejection has been issued by the Patent Office. Although "Final" sounds definitive the Patent Office issues such a Rejection roughly every other time an applicant replies to a Patent Office communication or "Office Action." The Patent Office then usually requires an additional fee and a Request for Continued Examination to keep the patent application alive and allow the applicant to make further changes and the Patent Office Examiner to keep reviewing the application.
This program gives the Patent Office Examiner slightly more time to look at the patent application after such a "Final" rejection even if the applicant has submitted additional changes and arguments - typically the Examiner would not consider changes at this point.
Practically, so far the author hasn't seen much of a change with this program although admittedly the cases submitted to this program have been few thereby resulting in a small sample size. The positive practical result of this program has been one more interaction with the PTO examiner without having to pay an additional fee - thereby giving the applicant more feedback on the examiner's view of the case . . . and more bang for the buck . . .
Hopefully, this program will continue even after September and the Examiners will become more comfortable with reviewing patent applications even after a "Final" rejection - particularly since the Patent Office has raised the fees for a Request for Continued Examination, especially for a second and subsequent Requests for Continued Examination. VIctor Cardona can be contacted at [email protected]