Managing IP spoke with Banner Witcoff shareholder Robert Katz about the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s suspension of expedited examination of design patents. The program allowed parties to request faster examination if they paid an additional fee and met other requirements.
When discussing the use of the program, Katz said, “The only way for the design patent system to effectively work in many industries is to have a tool where you can expedite examination and get a design patent in hand in a relatively reasonable time frame so you can stop infringements when they occur.”
The article goes on to discuss alternatives to the program. Katz notes that the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure outlines a handful of circumstances where faster examination is warranted. For example, utility and design patent applications can file a “petition to make special,” which speeds up the processing time.
The full article, which is behind a paywall, can be found by clicking here.
Posted: April 17, 2025
