The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recognizes that the COVID-19 outbreak has imposed significant hardships on many of its stakeholders. In particular, some foreign intellectual property (IP) offices are not currently issuing paper certified copies of foreign applications due to the COVID-19 outbreak. To provide relief to applicants during the outbreak, the USPTO has published an Official Gazette Notice setting forth conditions under which the USPTO will suspend the requirement for filing the certified copy of the foreign application. The application must have been filed in a foreign IP office that does not participate in a bilateral or multilateral priority document exchange program with the USPTO that would cover the application and thus permit retrieval through the program.
The notice is published here.
by Element IP
Element IP is a premier boutique intellectual property law firm. Created specifically to service the needs of users of the US patent system, our firm combines extensive experience in patent procurement, counselling, licensing, post-grant proceedings, and litigation with innovative technology and staffing solutions to provide clients with high quality work product in a cost-effective and efficient manner.