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. The Office published an interim rule on March 5, 2014 (prioritized examination interim rule), to simplify 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 a request for Track I prioritized examination requires, upon filing of the application, an inventor's oath or declaration and all required fees, and that the application contain no more than four independent claims, thirty total claims, and no multiple dependent claims. If a request for Track I prioritized examination failed to meet these requirements on filing, then the request was dismissed. After operating under the previous rulemakings for some time, the Office determined that the time period for meeting the identified requirements could be expanded and still enable the Office to timely examine the patent application. Hence, on March 5, 2014, the Office published the prioritized examination interim rule to expand the time period for meeting the identified requirements. The Office received no comments from the public in response. This final rule adopts as final the amendments to the rules of practice originally set forth in the prioritized examination interim rule.
- Task
- Read the news
- Patent or trademark
- both
- Legacy system
- —
- Current entry point
- www.federalregister.gov/documents/2014/11/14/2014-27037/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
- 2014-11-14
- 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
- Changes to Continued Prosecution Application Practice
- Pilot Program for Extended Time Period To Reply to a Notice To File Missing Parts of Nonprovisional Application
- Changes To Practice for Continuing Applications, Requests for Continued Examination Practice, and Applications Containing Patentably Indistinct Claims
- Revisions To Implement the Patent Term Adjustment Provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act Technical Corrections Act
- 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
- Request for Comments on Proposed Change To Missing Parts Practice
- Changes To Implement the Prioritized Examination Track (Track I) of the Enhanced Examination Timing Control Procedures
- Changes To Implement the Prioritized Examination for Requests for Continued Examination
- Changes to Continued Prosecution Application Practice
- 2021 Increase of the Annual Limit on Accepted Requests for Track One Prioritized Examination
- Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request
- Increase of the Annual Limit on Accepted Requests for Track I Prioritized Examination
- Changes To Implement the Prioritized Examination Track (Track I) of the Enhanced Examination Timing Control Procedures
- Changes To Implement the Patent Law Treaty