The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the PTAB”) for the United States Patent and Trademark Office recently published a decision on appeal which overturned an Examiner’s rejection in application number 15/322,059. The PTAB held that the Examiner failed to adequately explain how a disputed reference taught the claimed subject matter. Ex parte Kensuke Matsumura, Masayiki
Examiner
Patent Examiners Will Get a Head Start with Automated Prior Art Searches
By Caitlin M. Wilmot on
Posted in About the PTAB
On Thursday, March 15, 2018, Commissioner for Patents, Andrew Hirshfeld, announced that the USPTO is making progress on its “Access to Prior Art Project,” which will serve as an automated tool to identify relevant prior art early in the review process.[1] The goal of the project is to increase patent examination quality and efficiency…