Changes to Permit Delayed Submission of Certain Requirements for Prioritized Examination
The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act includes provisions for prioritized examination of patent applications (also referred to as "Track I"), which have been implemented by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office) in previous rulemakings. This interim rule simplifies the Track I prioritized examination practice to reduce the number of requests for prioritized examination that must be dismissed. In order to enable rapid processing and examination of those applications, the previous rulemakings provided that an application having a request for Track I prioritized examination requires, upon filing of the application, an inventor's oath or declaration and all required fees, and contains no more than four independent claims, thirty total claims, and no multiple dependent claims. Accordingly, any request for Track I prioritized examination not meeting all of the requirements on filing must be dismissed. The Office has found that many such dismissals are due to the application as filed not including a properly executed inventor's oath or declaration, not including the excess claims fees or application size fee due, or improperly including a multiple dependent claim or claims in excess of the permitted number. The Office has determined that the time periods for meeting those requirements when filing a request for Track I prioritized examination could be expanded while maintaining the Office's ability to timely examine the patent application.
- Task
- Read the news
- Patent or trademark
- both
- Legacy system
- —
- Current entry point
- www.federalregister.gov/documents/2014/03/05/2014-04806/changes-to-permit-delayed-submission-of-certain-requirements-for-prioritized-examination (permanent link in the Federal Register, verified 2026-09-30)
- Legacy system and where it moved
- No legacy system name mention in title or summary )
- Fee
- Fee mentioned in title or summary (Confirmed in the document text)
- What you need (account or API key)
- No account or key mention in title or summary )
- Published
- 2014-03-05
- Document type
- Rule
- Source
- USPTO documents published in the Federal Register (Federal Register API)(retrieved 2026-10-06)
Everything in the same category
Read the news (all 1988) · both (all 2333)
Related entry points
- Changes To Permit Delayed Submission of Certain Requirements for Prioritized Examination
- Pilot Program for Extended Time Period To Reply to a Notice To File Missing Parts of Nonprovisional Application
- Request for Comments on Proposed Change To Missing Parts Practice
- 2025 Increase of the Annual Limit on Accepted Requests for Prioritized Examination
- Changes To Implement the Prioritized Examination Track (Track I) of the Enhanced Examination Timing Control Procedures Under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act
- Changes To Implement the Prioritized Examination for Requests for Continued Examination
- Changes To Implement the Patent Law Treaty
- Changes to Continued Prosecution Application Practice
- Changes to Continued Prosecution Application Practice
- Increase of the Annual Limit on Accepted Requests for Track I Prioritized Examination
- 2021 Increase of the Annual Limit on Accepted Requests for Track One Prioritized Examination
- Changes To Practice for Continued Examination Filings, Patent Applications Containing Patentably Indistinct Claims, and Examination of Claims in Patent Applications
- Changes To Practice for Continuing Applications, Requests for Continued Examination Practice, and Applications Containing Patentably Indistinct Claims
- Changes To Implement the Prioritized Examination Track (Track I) of the Enhanced Examination Timing Control Procedures
- Change in Practice Regarding Correction of Foreign Priority Claims
- Changes To Implement the Inventor's Oath or Declaration Provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act