The America Invents Act includes provisions for prioritized examination of patent applications and provides that the Office may not accept more than 10,000 requests for prioritization in any fiscal year (October 1 to September 30) until regulations setting another limit are prescribed. The Office published an interim rule in 2019 expanding the availability of prioritized examination by increasing the limit on the number of prioritized examination requests that may be accepted in a fiscal year to 12,000. The current interim rule further expands the availability of prioritized examination by increasing the limit on the number of prioritized examination requests that may be accepted in a fiscal year to 15,000.
The limit of 15,000 requests for prioritized examination accepted per year is applicable for fiscal year 2021.
The Interim Rule published in the Federal Register is available here.
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